Loved Enough to be Forgotten
by Lolly Davis
Summary: A new nurse to the 4077th, Linda Florence, sparks something within Hawkeye that he hasn't felt in a long time. But will Linda feel the same way for Hawkeye or will another doctor save her life in more ways than one?
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the MASH characters. However, the situations and extra characters are all mine.

In case of confusion, every time you see the ruler line, it means the point of view has changed. It does it a lot in the story, sometimes in the same chapter, so if you know that, it will be easier to read. Thanks!

* * *

I jumped out of the jeep and gazed around at the dusty compound, sighing and shaking my head. _Welcome to Korea,_ I thought to myself. I grabbed my olive-green bag and slung it over my shoulder with one hand while I tried to iron out a wrinkle in my skirt with the other. I looked terrible anyway so I didn't know why I kept trying to make myself presentable. I was tired, I was sure that my hair was a mess, my clothes were wrinkled, and I was so far from anything familiar that I knew I had no idea who I was anymore. Two weeks before I had been Linda Florence; born and raised in Massachusetts, got my RN and was a nurse in Boston before I decided to help out with the war effort. Now I was a nameless lieutenant at some MASH in South Korea, regretting my decision to help my country more and more.

I shifted my weight and watched the bustle of the small army hospital, the green tents and buildings standing out against the vivid blue of the clear sky. It happened to be a gorgeous day, but I wasn't really paying attention to the weather. The other nurses who traveled with me were titillated; all bunched up in a group, whispering and giggling as potentially eligible surgical staff waltzed past. I, on the other hand, wasn't here to look for a mate or a one-night-stand. I was here to work and save lives. Sex and love were not in my plans.

An odd little kid, I'd say about eighteen or nineteen, with glasses and clothes that were so big he swam in them shuffled up to us.

"You must be the new nurses," he said with a nasal voice that reminded me of a kid I used to baby sit in high school. "I'm Corporal O'Reilly. I'm the company clerk here. I'll show you all to your quarters." Some nurses giggled, some frowned, I just rolled my eyes and followed the pre-pubescent corporal to my new home for the duration of my stay.

That new home was a canvas tent just a few strides from the post operative ward. I opened the door and looked around, noticing that I wouldn't be alone in this tent. By the looks of it, the woman I was bunking with had been there for a while.

"Take a good look." I jumped at the voice and whirled around. A petite woman sat on a drab green bed just behind me. "This is going to be your home for a good, long time."

She smiled and stood up, extending her hand to me. "I'm Lieutenant Gardner. Sherry to those who know my first name."

Relief spread trough my whole body. _Thank the maker, she has a sense of humor,_ I thought to myself.

"I'm Lieutenant Linda Florence," I replied.

"Florence? Like Florence Nightingale?" she giggled.

"That's right. 'Nightingale' has been a nickname of mine for a long time. I guess it's inevitable that I became a nurse, right?"

I picked up my bag and she pointed to a bed across the tent. "That beauty is yours."

"I can hardly wait to get some shut-eye," I said, the cot creaking dangerously as I threw my bag on it. A small mirror winked back at me from my bedside table and I caught a glimpse of myself for the first time all day.

It would have been an understatement to say that I looked terrible. My eyes were bloodshot with fatigue and were lying on pillows of puffy, purple skin. My shoulder-length auburn hair was beyond help, tossed violently by the jeep ride to the point of surrender. I shook my head in disappointment, wishing I had made a better first impression, but it was too late. Doing what I could to salvage my appearance, I pulled a brush out of my bag and began a futile attempt to restore some order to my hair.

I heard Sherry laugh behind me. "It doesn't help."

"What doesn't help?" I asked, trying to wrestle the tangles out of my hair.

"Trying to look human."

I turned around and sat on the edge of my bed. Seeing my confused look, she continued.

"It's no secret that this place is no Waldorf-Astoria. The food is terrible, the weather is either too hot or too cold three hundred and sixty days out of the year, and you have to learn to live like an animal. The work is hard, the pay stinks, and only superwomen could keep herself looking decent all the while."

I nodded and smiled. "Can you tell me more about what it's like here?"

"It depends on what you're here for."

"To work," I paused. "Isn't that what we're all here for?"

She laughed. "Boy do I wish I had that idealism," she said sincerely. "Most of the girls that hopped off that jeep with you came here for them." She pointed out the dirty window to a group of men sauntering across the compound. "They came simply to be close to soldiers. And most of the soldiers don't mind at all." She sighed. "Keep an eye out for one in particular. Tall, coal black hair, will charm you within an inch of your life, and you'll be in his arms before you can resist at all."

"Sounds like someone I knew a long time ago," I said, turning back to my bunk and unzipping my bag. "He was a doctor when I was a nurse in Boston. I was one of the many who fell for him, unfortunately, he was living with someone." I sighed, remembering him in explicit detail. Every hair on his head, every smile that shone at me, and every time he touched my hand. "He's probably married by now, living somewhere in Boston, happy, with a family." I sighed. "But it would be nice to see him again, even if it was in this place."

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble, kid, but we're not talking about the same doctor," she laughed. "This one is a permanent bachelor, I doubt he has ever come close to wearing a ring on his finger and probably never will. He's too in love with his one-night-stands to love someone completely."

"Well, he sounds intriguing. How will I know which one to stay away from?"

"Oh, you'll probably know him. His swagger alone gives him away." We both chuckled. "But just in case you don't, run when you hear the name Benjamin Franklin Pierce."

I stopped immediately and whisked around. "Hawkeye?"

* * *

"What's all the commotion about?" Hawkeye asked as Radar flitted by the tent.

"We've got a whole batch of new nurses," Radar replied through the airy tent flap.

"Brand new nurses?" Hawk asked, hardly able to hear the news on account of his excitement. "Hey Beej," he said, straining his voice over the sound of Frank's typewriter. "New nurses."

I grunted in response.

Hawkeye looked back at me and rolled his eyes. "Will you tear yourself away from your letter long enough to at least respond to me verbally?"

I just smiled and continued writing.

"New and improved nurses, BJ, fresh from the outside world." He glanced outside again, searching desperately for a new face of the female persuasion. "I bet the other nurses are already telling them of the mysterious stranger who comes to the beautiful and weary at night to save them from boredom and loneliness." He laughed and took a sip out of his martini glass. "Now where did I put that mask?"

"Can we have just a little bit of quiet please?" Frank asked as the clicking of his typewriter momentarily silenced. His lips, if any could be found, puckered and his eyebrows narrowed, giving Hawkeye an evil glance.

"I've been asking the army that since I've got here, Frank, but they never answer my calls," Hawkeye said, glaring at Major Burns with all the contempt he deserved.

"The army has better things to do then to talk to a low-life like you," Frank retorted, looking smug.

"That's why they sent you here, Frank," I said casually, glancing up from my letter. "They wanted someone who can speak low-life."

"He lives!" Hawk yelled, bounding over to me. "Really, how many times can one man write to his wife in a week?"

"How many minutes are in a week?"

His brow furrowed and I could almost see the numbers floating through his head, multiplying and multiplying until the answer formulated.

"Ten-thousand eighty," he replied.

I smiled. "I figure I can top that, easy." He shook his head and took my wrist as if he was taking my pulse.

"There's no easy way to tell you this, BJ, but you're suffering from chronic matrimony. Worst case I've ever seen."

Hawkeye dropped my hand and walked back to the door, opening it. He stood on the threshold of our tent, no doubt trying to catch a glimpse of one of the new nurses. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Ever since his ex, Carlye Breslin-Walton, made her appearance at the good old 4077th his womanizing antics had become more intense, more urgent, more concentrated. He wanted to fill his life with the love that he craved but wouldn't let anyone give him.

It wasn't like Hawkeye Pierce was the only one of us who felt the persistent ache of loneliness, we all did. Everyone had varying degrees of it. I, for example, had a beautiful wife, Peg, and a daughter, Erin, back in the states. But Uncle Sam deemed that I couldn't be with them. Instead, I was half a world away, fighting a war I didn't start and for that matter didn't believe in. I knew the loneliness. I had felt it ever since I kissed Peg goodbye. Writing my letters home helped to ebb the pain but I never fully got over it, and never expected to until I was back in the arms of the two women I loved: my wife and my daughter.

"Well," Hawkeye said, beginning to bustle around the tent getting some refreshments prepared for our new nurses, "I think it's time for the welcome wagon to make its stop at the nurse's quarters. You up for it Beej?"

"Give me a few seconds to write 'I love you with all my heart, soul, and every other organ, tissue, and spiritual matter in my body' and I'll be about ready."

"You hopeless romantic, you," he said, picking up his cask of home made gin.

"Hopeful romantic, Hawk," I countered, placing my letter gently on the table beside me and picking myself up from my chair. I threw on my shoes and followed Hawkeye out the door.

We stepped into the sunlight and reveled in it for a moment.

"I can't believe the army ordered a pretty day for us," he said, basking in the warmth of the sun.

"I hope they tell us what we're doing right so we get more out of good behavior," I said, shielding my eyes from the brightness as a figure came running towards us.

"Radar, what's the rush?" Hawkeye asked.

"Choppers, sirs," he yelled as he passed by. A moment later, sure enough, I heard the blades of the helicopters rhythmically pounding at the air, no doubt rushing countless wounded kids directly to our doorstep.

"It's a good thing Korea delivers," I said, running towards the ambulances pulling up in the compound.

"After OR remind me to cancel my subscription," Hawkeye yelled back.


	2. Ch 2: Familiarity

We were instantly hit by a wave of pandemonium, chaos, bedlam, you name it and we had it. I still couldn't fully get used to the sight of those poor kids, broken in so many pieces just waiting to be put back together by yours truly, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce, known as Hawkeye to the ones I love.

Triage was a great preview into just how much death and destruction we were dealing with, and today seemed to be an excellent day for some of these young men to enlist in heaven's army.

"Looks like Father Mulcahy will have his hands full today," I said to myself as I pulled a sheet over another kid's face. I cursed the fates for the hundredth time that day and prayed to whomever to give me the strength to play God. I checked over some of the bad cases, ordered some plasma, some whole blood, some x-rays, it was all routine to me. What a terrible thing to have blood and death on a schedule. It would have sickened me if I had the time to be ill. Unfortunately, I didn't. I had soldiers to stitch together.

Fifteen minutes later I was scrubbing up with BJ, Frank, and Margaret, the head nurse. Col. Potter was already in the OR, giving a few last minute orders before he got down to business. I finished scouring my hands and Major Margaret Houlihan, or Hotlips as she hated to be called, handed me a towel.

"I see someone isn't his usual chatty self," Frank said, grabbing a towel from Hotlips and carelessly drying off his hands. "Did you run out of snotty things to say Mr. Wisenheimer?"

"It just so happens, Frank, that I covered up two bodies not five minutes ago. And if you don't zip it you're going to make three."

"Doctors, please," pleaded Hotlips, "I have new nurses in there and the last thing they need to hear is officers bickering."

"It might make them forget about all the blood and guts they're about to see," said BJ as he took a towel from Margaret.

"We wouldn't want that," I countered. I threw my towel into the laundry, took a deep breath, and headed into the OR.

I stood in front of my table as I accepted a gown and gloves from one of the new nurses. Her touch, although new to me, seemed familiar and I closed my eyes for a moment, just thinking about what I could be doing with that nurse instead of pulling nine irons out of teenagers.

"Doctor," I heard a voice say. I opened my eyes and there was a body lying out in front of me, scarred, bruised, bleeding, and waiting for me to gouge him open and take out whatever the enemy had shoved in.

I looked up at the nurse and she looked back at me. We studied each other for a moment. Did I recognize this nurse? She must have been a new one since I knew just about every other nurse in the outfit biblically. The familiarity boiled up inside me, but where did I know her from?

"I'm not a doctor or anything, but the last time I checked you need to open a patient up in order to begin operating," she said, her sarcasm a welcome sound in a room full of gravity.

"Well, maybe I should just let you operate and I'll sit back and watch," I said and laughed.

"I did learn from the best," she said, and handed me a scalpel. "I bet I wouldn't be half bad."

"Pray, who did you learn from?" I asked, making my incision. I finished and looked up at the nurse, but she just smiled at me and readied herself to assist.

Soon enough, I was fishing for shrapnel in the belly of an American soldier.

"This would be easier if I had a really big magnet," I said, tossing a small fragment into a metal bucket, the sharp ping resonating through the room.

"I can't understand why we do this to each other," my nurse said after being silent for some time.

"Who does what to who – clamp – nurse?"

"Clamp." She handed me the instrument. "How we can do this to them or they can do this to us. How human beings can destroy each other over something as trivial as land."

"You're beginning to sound like our resident whiner, lieutenant," Frank said harshly, throwing a bloodied sponge into a bucket under his table, and missing of course.

"My voice is deeper," she said, and I laughed out loud.

"Lieutenant!" Hotlips screamed. "Report to me after your shift."

"Yes major," she muttered and handed me a sponge.

"You certainly are my kind of woman," I said, fishing out another piece of iron. "You've managed to be beautiful and sarcastic, you've insulted Frank and Hotlips, and you're a brilliant nurse."

"I know I've heard a speech like that before, Dr. Pierce," she said. I stopped and looked up at her. Her eyes were mischievous and I could tell she was enjoying watching me struggle.

"Have the other nurses told you about me?"

"Enough to confirm what I already know."

"Why do you seem so familiar to me?"

"Because I know you. Whether you remember me is up for debate, of course."

"Why would I have met someone like you and then just let you get away? Suction."

"Suction. Because you were working harder than anyone in the history of medicine and you didn't have time for a little old nurse like me. And, rumor has it you were living with someone."

"Ah, my days of residency in Boston, Massachusetts. At least that narrows it down a bit. Retract that bowel for me, will you nurse?"

"Got it, Hawkeye," she said. I stopped and looked back up at her. Hawkeye? She had just called me by the nickname that my father had given me and was reserved for those people that I love the most. Needless to say, I was blown away again.

"Hawkeye? How many people in Boston called me that?"

"I dunno. I guess you'd have to ask good old Trapper McIntyre for that one, wouldn't you Hawk?"

"Oh no," Frank yelled out. "Anyone who knows Hawkeye Pierce _and_ Trapper McIntyre is obviously trouble."

"I'll take care of her, Frank," Hotlips said and wiped his brow. "I'll make sure she falls in line."

My nurse leaned in close to me. "Does she realize that I can hear her?"

I shook my head. "Major Houlihan doesn't believe that anyone under her can hear her. Unless of course it's Frank's turn to be under her."

The nurse chuckled and packed off a bleeder for me. I shook my head. "What I'm dying to know is who you are and why you know so many intimate details about me." I pulled out the last piece of shrapnel and sighed. "Burt first give me three-oh silk."

"Three-oh," she said and handed me the needle. I began to sew up the gash in my patient's stomach.

"You know it's going to bother me all night, this business of a nurse who knows me but I don't know her."

"You'll know who I am soon enough, Hawkeye," she said, and smiled.

I smiled back.

* * *

Ten hours later I had forgotten all about Hawkeye Pierce, as I'm sure he had forgotten about me. Major Houlihan rotated me away from his table as soon as she could, hoping my remarks would stop. Of course, putting me at Major Frank Burns' table was the worst mistake she could have made. I didn't know how he could have been a doctor, but I was afraid several times he was going to try to sew up the patient with a scalpel instead of a needle.

Needless to say, after I told Frank what I thought about him, Major Houlihan scheduled me in post-op. Before which, she had taken me aside and told me that she respected me as a nurse, but if I didn't stay away from Captain Pierce she would write me up for insubordination. I, of course, was planning on disobeying orders.

I could tell almost instantly that this wasn't going to be the experience I had thought it would be. The military aspect of medicine seemed pointless; salutes and inspections clashed with the blood and mess of surgery.

Before I stepped into the operating room, Major Houlihan, one of the most military people on the post, had taken all five of the new nurses, including me, aside and briefly told us what we were going to be expected to do in OR that day.

I'm not expecting anything fancy, she had said, and I don't want any of you to try and be heroes. I simply want you to assist to the best of your ability. Things move quickly in there and if you can't keep up, nudge one of the nurses or myself and we'll relieve you.

She paused for a moment, letting her cold blue eyes sweep over the group, no doubt making mental notes on all of us. I looked at the other nurses out of the corner of my eye. They all looked so scared as if each of them were going under the knife instead of simply helping. I hoped I didn't look like that too, although my heart was clawing its way up to my throat and there were eagles flapping around in my stomach.

OR was a mad whirl, constant action upon action. When you weren't helping a doctor you were running back and forth getting supplies, sterilizing instruments, tossing x-rays on the screens, and hoping that no one could see your heart beating frantically within your chest.

Despite my efforts a quiet smile crossed my face. That was what it was all about. It sounds grisly, but the OR thrilled me. I didn't like all the death, all the destruction, all the pain, but I loved knowing that I was helping to make that pain go away. Helping the patients, forming a blood pact with the doctors…

Hawkeye. His face floated through my mind and I paused to remember. Reminiscing about the past was a strong point if mine. I lived in the past, through my accomplishments and the people I had known, they were what defined me. It was almost as if I had no present or future. My life was a photo album and every memory, every movement, every action, every person was just a picture in my mind, frozen in time and space.

But Hawkeye was different. Every memory I had of him was a movement of some kind: shaking Trapper's hand, taking me over his shoulder, his mischievous smile spreading slowly across his face when he got an idea for a new prank, waving at me from the platform of the Boston-Maine Express Train as I sped away from Massachusetts…

What a shock it was seeing Hawkeye there. Not just seeing him but working with him again. How amazing it would have been if Trapper were there too, then it would have been like I'd never left Boston. Sure, I must have not made a lasting impression on Hawkeye but he sure changed my perspective on life and together, he and Trapper made me see the world from a completely different angle. They taught me that life is all a game, a show, an amusement, and that we as doctors and nurses should do everything to preserve it. Life isn't serious, they had said, but death is.

As I sat in post-op, I kept thinking about Hawkeye and how bizarre it was to be in the same hospital as he was, not to mention the same country. I would have thought someone as smart as him would have found a way to evade the draft and stay out of the war. I guess if Hawkeye was here I didn't feel so nameless or faceless. I had a friend, or at least someone who knew I existed past the green uniform and the white mask.

All in all, I was happy to be there. Happy to have him there.

* * *

It was driving me crazy. The nurse who was at my table seemed so familiar to me, but I just couldn't find her in the deep chasms of my memory. I knew she was around during my residency, but past that I was drawing a blank. Unfortunately, my curiosity had to take a back seat to the operations I was doing and I didn't get to really put my mind to it until I was wearily taking off my gown. I was happy to get the blood-soaked garment off my body, and BJ shared the sentiment with me.

"Boy do I hate it here," he said, pulling off his white scrubs and revealing his green slacks underneath.

"You know," I started, "I was just thinking that. Thinking about how nice it would be if the war ended tomorrow."

"Come on, Hawk, where would the fun be in that?" BJ asked, throwing his clothes into the laundry. "I'm going to run to post-op, check on one of my cases."

"Wait, let me come with you," I said, and hurriedly stripped off my scrubs.

"What's the rush?"

"That new nurse, the one who was working on my table early in the shift."

"Was she the one that told Frank he'd be a better surgeon if someone removed half of his brain, stomped on it-"

"And stapled it back in," Hawkeye finished, laughing. "That certainly made the rest of surgery bearable."

"Maybe it's your mutual contempt for Frank that's hitting your familiar button."

"I dunno," Hawk said, shaking his head. "It can't be that. I mean, I know I know her, but I don't know where I know her from, you know?"

BJ laughed. "You're getting a little jittery. Could this be another one of those long-lost lovers from your past life?"

"That's the thing. I have no idea if this should be a woman that I need to remember or a woman that I should forget. But I need to know who she is before I can get to the remembering and/or forgetting."

"Well, let's be off to post-op and we can unmask your mystery nurse."

BJ opened the door and I ran in, grabbed a lab coat and searched for her. The eight beds of the post operative ward were lined up like soldiers lying at attention. The white sheets and brown blankets just added to the utter lack of color that plagued the camp. I scanned the room, looking for the girl that was driving me crazy, but I only saw nurse Kellye and Hotlips. Not a trace of the new nurse could be seen. She had eluded me once again. My mind a mess, I yanked a chair out from under the post-op desk and fell into the seat, dejected and frustrated. BJ sat on the desk in front of me.

"No luck?" he asked, tucking his stethoscope under his lab coat.

"I must have just missed her," I said, looking at BJ.

"You'll find her, Hawkeye," he said, reassuringly. I smiled at my friend.

Despite his kindness and sincerity, something about BJ always made me a little bitter. Maybe it was because he had replaced my best friend, Trapper John McIntyre, who I had missed saying goodbye to by ten minutes. BJ had filled his place surgically very well, having a lot of talent as a doctor, but he was different than Trapper. Trapper's sly smile, wild blonde hair, and love for the opposite sex was alien compared to BJ's wide, kind grin, kempt brown hair and affection and devotion for his wife and his daughter.

I missed the competition, the constant comparing of conquests that Trapper and I had made a game of while we were there together. The things we pulled and weren't reprimanded for made us feel like we had the power and not the bozos with more stripes or stars on their clothes. We were the common kings, making jesters out of our superiors and laughing all the way.

Then Trapper left, snuck out behind my back without so much as a goodbye and I lost all the glory, all the power. BJ came in, shiny and new from the states, and, although he didn't know it, he reduced me to a mere person again. BJ was like a brother to me but he would never be Trapper John.

Underneath it all, I guess I was envious of BJ. He had all the things that I always wanted: a solid career, a home, and a family. He was full of idealism about the world, although Korea was slowly sapping it away, and he had so much to go back to as soon as he was freed of this hell-hole.

Jealousy was always my least favorite emotion.

I sighed and sunk lower into the chair, checking the clock to see how long until my shift in post-op started. But something was in my way. Someone was in my way. Not just someone…_she_ was in my way.

The shoulder-length auburn hair, the flawless complexion, the curious green eyes, and the woman that was shrouded in mystery not ten seconds ago was suddenly bathed in the light of recognition. It had all completely clicked in my mind.

I looked at BJ and smiled, gesturing over to her with a small flick of my head.

"Say BJ," I started, raising my voice so she would hear me. She smiled but didn't look up from her work as I regaled BJ with me tale. "Did I ever tell you about the time when I was in residency, there was a big meeting of all the hotshots in Boston coming to hear a lecture from some world-renowned crackpot doctor who couldn't thread a needle, let alone operate?

"So, on the day of the lecture, this girl asked me if I would go up and kiss the speaker flush on the mouth. I told her if I did, she'd have to kiss me right after. She agreed and when I kissed this guy, the whole place was in an uproar. And while I was waiting for the girl to come and kiss me, I was arrested."

"They had grabbed you before I could even pucker," she said, coming up behind my chair. "But Trapper and I busted you out of the joint in good time."

"Yeah, the next week," I said, jumping out of my chair and giving my old friend a hug. "Linda Florence. The sweetest nightingale in all of Massachusetts."

"I can't believe you still remember that," she laughed. "It seems so long ago."

"I also remember that you still owe me a kiss," I laughed.

"Put it on my tab," she giggled. "I bet Carlye wouldn't want me kissing her beau while he was so far away."


	3. Ch 3: Old and New Friends

* * *

His jovial face dropped and he was no longer the light-hearted Hawkeye that I had known in Boston, he was a man who had known love and had lost it.

"Um, Carlye and I didn't make it past my residency," he said, combing his raven black hair out of his face. "We separated a month or two after you left."

"Oh, Hawkeye," I said, and put my hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He shrugged it away and forced a smile onto his face.

"Well, it's too bad you didn't get here a few months ago," he said, quickly changing the subject to one less painful. "The whole gang would have been reunited just like old times."

"What do you mean?"

"You missed Trapper John, Linda. He was here."

My mouth dropped. "Get out!" I said. "Trapper John McIntyre was here in South Korea with you? Oh boy I should have come to this hell-hole sooner. Wouldn't that have been a gas?"

"You three shouldn't be loafing around in post-op," I heard Major Burns yell across the room.

Hawkeye rolled his eyes. "Speaking of gas…" he said, gesturing to Frank. I laughed. "Well, I'm off, but come by my tent later and we'll talk more about old times."

"How will I know which one is your tent?"

"Just follow the glug-glug sound of me drinking my sorrows away," he laughed. He turned to his friend who was still sitting quietly on the desk. "You coming, Beej?"

"Yeah, be there in a minute. I just need to check out my case."

Hawkeye nodded and left.

I shook my head and turned to the man Hawkeye had been talking to.

"I'm sorry. I seem to have forgotten my manners. I'm Linda Florence." I extended my hand and he grasped it firmly.

"BJ Hunnicutt."

"It's nice to meet you," I smiled. "Does BJ stand for anything?"

He laughed, "Not really."

We chuckled together. He slid off the desk and headed towards one of the more badly wounded soldiers. I studied BJ and his walk. He walked as if he was still at home, bright and cheery with an air of invincibility. I could tell that he had only been here a short time, maybe a few months.

Not like Hawkeye.

I saw the way my old friend carried himself. He was worn out, worn down and looked as if he was ready to throw himself on the mercy of the fates. He was still strong, but not like he had been back in Boston. He was a different person and that scared me a little. If Hawkeye was so changed by this place how could I get through it? I found myself wondering how it had changed Trapper.

I sighed and sat back into the chair. Trapper John McIntyre and Hawkeye Pierce were here in the same place and where was I? I was too busy wasting my life with that no-brained, half-wit of a fiancé. Why kid myself, that's why I was really here, to get away from my memories, to get away from him, Mark, the one man I thought I couldn't live without. But boy could he live without me.

BJ came back to me and sighed.

"Private Wallace in bed four is in pretty bad shape. There's still some drainage on his dressings and I don't like the way his fever's acting up."

"I'll tell the next nurse on duty to keep an eye on him," I said. BJ looked up at me, questioning. It was then that I noticed his piercing blue eyes that caught the light and shimmered like icy stars.

"You're getting off soon?"

I pulled my gaze away from his eyes and at the duty roster on the desk.

"Um, yeah. Nurse Bigelow should be here in…"

The Post-op door opened and Nurse Bigelow walked in. I looked at BJ. "…No time at all."

He laughed. He was very generous with his smiles; they never seemed to leave his face. It made me feel safer, more at home rather than so far away from all that was familiar.

"Well, since you and I seem to be off our shift at the same time, why don't we scurry on over to the swamp and meet up with Hawkeye for a drink or two?"

"The swamp?" I asked, taking off my lab coat and letting it rest in the crook of my arm.

"That's the name of our tent," he said and laughed. "You'll get it when you see the place."

"That bad, huh?"

"It's fantastic if you like general pandemonium."

We briefed Nurse Bigelow on all the cases she needed to keep an eye on and threw our lab coats at the rack, both of us missing it by a few feet.

He pushed the door open and we waded into the open air. The stale smell of blood left my nostrils and was replaced by the cool breeze.

"It must be nice to taste fresh air after ten hours of surgery."

"It's like my own little slice of Korean heaven," he said. I laughed and walked on. The loose sand clung to my boots like it was trying to drag me down. I tried to kick it off, but the grime refused to let go. After a few kicks, I gave up.

"How do you deal with the dirt here?" I asked.

No answer. I pivoted and stared at BJ; standing in the middle of the compound, arms hanging limply to his side, eyes slammed tight, and silent as if he were a wax sculpture. "BJ?" I asked.

It took him a moment to respond, and when he did, he spoke very slowly.

"The breeze hitting my face like this seems so familiar. I can just stand here like this, arms spread and close my eyes and imagine I'm back at home." A sad look spread across his face as he opened his eyes. "I do that a lot, you know. Pretend I'm back in the states. Unfortunately, every time I open my eyes, I look around expecting to see my home, my daughter, my wife. But I'm never magically transported there. I open my eyes and I'm still in Korea. I'm still a part of this war." He laughed. "Look at me, depressing you on your very first day."

"I was depressed when I stepped off of my plane at Kimpo Airport, BJ," I said. I put my arm around his shoulders. "Now, tell me where this swamp is so I can be reunited with my dear friend Doctor Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce." I laughed. "His name always was a handful."

"So is he," he replied. We laughed as he led me towards a drab collection of olive green canvas which I could only assume was their tent. My assumption was confirmed when a glimmer of light hit the door and I saw the words "SWAMP" written in faded red letters on the top. He stepped in front of me and yanked the door out of the way, holding it open while I stepped in.

As I crossed the threshold of the tent, a masculine scent hit me like a wave crashing over my head. I inhaled several times and the smell of man enveloped me. How long had it been since I'd been this close to a man's living arrangements? Two months? Three? The manly musk made my knees weak and I had to steady myself on the doorframe for a moment before walking in all the way.

The room seemed to be separated into two distinct sides. The area to my left was very tidy with military precision in the making of the bed and the placement of the footlocker. It looked like it had been sterilized and dyed olive green.

On the other hand, the right side of the tent was in complete disarray. Civilian clothes were strewn over unmade beds and unfinished letters abandoned during the deluge of wounded were scattered over the floor. On top of a table was an unidentifiable concoction of countless copper wires, rubber tubes, and glass vials of all different shapes. Next to this table was Hawkeye, lounging on his cot, sipping on a clear liquid from a martini glass. He had haphazardly thrown a crimson robe over himself that trailed out behind him like a peacock's tail.

I felt BJ brush my body as he closed the door and stepped inside. The sound of the door banging shut brought Hawkeye out of his trance and he turned to me. I couldn't help but notice the sadness that was hewn into his face, most likely from the time he had spent against his will in Korea. I always knew Hawkeye was anti-war, yet here he was. I would have thought he'd go AWOL rather than participate in war. But this wasn't the first time Hawkeye Pierce had surprised me and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

"Dump, sweet dump," BJ said, breaking the silence. He moved through the mess and towards his cot in the rear of the tent. He threw himself on to his bed and stared up at me. "Feel free to pull up a garbage pile." I smiled back but it was forced. I looked back at Hawkeye. His face was blank, unidentifiable, and I knew from experience that Hawkeye didn't like to show his emotions, especially when he was in distress. It made him feel weak. My being here had upset him, that much was obvious, but why was unclear to me. I gingerly sat in a chair by his bed and looked at his face. He avoided my eyes.

"Hawkeye?" I asked, touching his hand with mine. "You ok?"

He looked up at me and I swear I saw a tear trickle down his cheek before he wiped his face with his hand. I would have pressed the matter, but I knew he would never admit to something like that.

He forced a smile onto his face and took a sip of the liquid in his glass, which I quickly identified as gin, more or less. "Sorry, Linda," he said softly. "It's just…" he trailed off, looking into the distance, carefully picking what to say next. "Seeing you here reminds me of everything I had before I came to this place. A great job, good friends, Carlye."

"Hawkeye," I whispered, taking his hand. "You're making me dabble into psychiatry here and I don't know if I can handle it." We both laughed, but dryly and without much feeling. "Are you really that broken up about seeing me here?"

He squeezed my hand. "I love your being here, I really do. It's refreshing to see someone so new and especially someone who I knew so far back. But, I wish you could see me like I was in Boston, not like this. I mean, look at me."

"I am looking at you, Hawkeye. And do you know what I see? I see an amazing doctor. I know the meatball surgery you have to do here isn't preferable but I saw you in there today and you were saving lives like you always wanted to do. You're saving people, Hawk. And the best part for the rest of us is your ego has deflated significantly. Of course, that's not saying much…" I chuckled.

I motioned to BJ, sitting up on his cot in silence. "I can already tell that you two have an amazing friendship and now that I'm here, you have someone else on your side." I took his hand in mine, trying carefully to say the right thing when it came to such a difficult subject. "And Carlye, she could never understand how important your work was to you and she hated that you were so gifted. You need someone who will support your gift, not try to compete with it."

He took a deep breath and sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. His grip on my hand tightened and he opened his eyes and looked into mine. "You know, you would have made an excellent psychiatrist. Why didn't you explore that?"

"You talked me out of it," I said. We both laughed and his face brightened again. This was the Hawkeye I knew and loved: the comic with a song in his heart and a practical joke on his mind.

"Well, give me a moment to freshen up, to cleanse the toxins out of my body so I can add in more powerful ones in higher doses, and get some fresh air all at the same time."

"You always were multitalented," I said, and laughed, letting go of his hand as he stood up. I followed him with my eyes as he exited and continued to watch until he left my sight. As soon as he did, I sighed and sank into the chair. "Boy does compassion take a lot out of a person," I kidded. BJ laughed.

"Have you always been this good with people?" he asked from across the tent. I turned to him and shrugged.

"I came from a huge family. Lots of problems, lots of drama, and then there was everyone else." He laughed and stood up, heading over to the table with the strange apparatus on it.

"I've only known him a few months, but I've never seen so many mixed feelings in him as I have in the past few hours."

"Hawkeye is a complex person. He seems so buoyant, so full of life on the outside, but on the inside he's in constant turmoil. Turmoil with other people, with his environment, and especially with himself."

"It sounds like you two were pretty close," he said, taking a rubber tube from the belly of the device and pouring liquid into a martini glass. "Were you involved at all back in Boston?"

I laughed. "He was very in love with Carlye when I left. She was everything to him." I dropped my head and stared at the floor. "I still can't believe they're not together. It makes you question why a person's heart would lead them so far into devotion only to be ripped out by a rusty scalpel."

BJ sat back down on his bed, taking a quick sip of his drink and grimacing at the taste of it. "I saw what she did to him. She came through here not too long ago."

I quickly looked up at him, studying his face to find any trace of a joke, but there was none.

"Carlye Breslin was here? In this unit? With Hawkeye here?" BJ nodded.

I looked through the tent into the dusty compound. "Poor guy. That must have killed him."

"What really drove the knife into his heart is that she's married now."

I laughed bitterly. "That's not too surprising. She never was the independent type. She's always needed someone to lean on, to be with. If only she had known that it wasn't going to be Hawkeye before I left Boston."

BJ looked at me, puzzled. "You had a thing for him?"

"A thing? No." I ran my hand along Hawkeye's bed, tucking the sheets under the thin mattress as I spoke. "I thought that Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce was the embodiment of perfection. He's brilliant, he's funny, he has an amazing talent for reading people, a compassion I've never seen equaled, and a good heart." I stood up and moved away from Hawkeye's space, stepping over his clothes and his belongings. "Unfortunately there wasn't enough room in that heart for me."


	4. Ch 4: Fate?

* * *

She looked so out of place in our tent: standing there fresh and new in a place where everyone was so tired and worn. Although distressed, she still looked pure and pristine.

I shook my head. It was terrible to watch someone disheartened about a failed affair and think of them as "pristine." I stood up and walked over to her, slipping my arm over her shoulders.

"You said yourself that Hawkeye is a complex person," I started, trying to console her. "You can never predict what he's thinking and if you ever tried your mind would probably cave in." She giggled and wiped away what looked like a tear. "Give him time, he may come around."

She looked up at me and smiled. Her eyes caught mine and I froze for a moment. My eyes were fixed on hers and I couldn't seem to tear them away. I studied her face with my medical precision: intelligent green eyes, light auburn hair that shone red in the light, smooth skin without a blemish or scar to account for, and a smile that could have stopped traffic. I came to the conclusion that she was a very attractive woman.

She finally broke the gaze and looked back at the table on the side of the tent.

She cleared her throat. "So, what's this thing?" she asked pointing at the still.

"That would be our gin machine," I said, pulling the spout out from under the glass vials. "Care for a sample of our fine work?"

"Your CEO lets you have a distillery?" she asked, amazed.

"Colonel Potter is a good guy, and isn't a stranger to the bottle," I laughed. "Most people here aren't into the whole military thing. We're just regular people who happen to wear the same clothes."

"The two Majors seem pretty GI to me."

"Well, Frank and Margaret are the only two people in this outfit who actually remember that we're in a war. The rest of us try to forget it, hence the booze." I handed her a glass.

"A toast?" I raised my glass and she followed suit. "To what?"

"New friendships forged in the heat of war," she said.

"And old ones renewed by fabulous coincidence," I replied.

We drank.

A voice behind us sounded in mid gulp, for Linda, mid sputter.

"Coincidence?" We both whipped around and saw Hawkeye leaning on the doorframe, looking much happier than he had when he left. "Why not fate?"

"You never believed in fate," Linda said, taking another sip and grimacing at the taste of the gin.

"I still don't," he said and crossed the threshold into the tent. "But don't let my cynicism rub off on you too, Linda. I've already made BJ here a genuine pessimist and I don't want that happening to you."

"I never intended to take anything you said to heart, Hawkeye." I knew she meant it as a joke but there was an edge of bitterness in her remark. Hawkeye had obviously hurt her; the worst part was he didn't know. I took one last swig of my gin before setting my glass down on the table.

"Well, I'm dead on my feet so I'm going to hit the sack," I said.

Linda stepped away from Hawkeye and extended her hand. "It really was a pleasure meeting you," she said. I grasped her outstretched hand and shook it.

"The pleasure was all mine," I replied. I let go of her and turned to make some sense out of my random arrangement of bedclothes. I heard Hawkeye and Linda talking behind me.

"It really makes me glad to know that I have someone here that will help keep me sane," she said sincerely.

"Well, you can definitely count on me to help. And if I fail, I'll be the first to visit you in the crazy house."

Linda chuckled. "You always knew how to make a girl feel special."

I heard a rustle and looked into a mirror by my bed. Linda gave Hawkeye a light kiss on the cheek.

Linda: "See you later, Hawk."

She walked out of the door and before the door had even shut all the way Hawkeye had collapsed on his bed.

I turned to him and tried to read his facial expression. But it was too mixed, so I decided to ask instead.

"A penny for your thoughts?"

"It'll take a lot more than that," he said. "I have so many feelings rushing through my mind right now that my head feels like Grand Central Station."

"Want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. "If it weren't for Carlye I would have easily gone for Linda. Now that Carlye's no longer in the picture and Linda's here, I can't decide whether to pursue her or run screaming when I see her."

"She's a lovely girl. Maybe you should see if it works out."

He screwed his face up in deep thought. "But I have an amazing friendship with her. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly attracted to her, but I feel like if I went for it we might lose what we have." He looked up at me. "What's happening to me, Beej?"

"It's called real friendship with a woman, Hawkeye," I said. "Not uncommon, unless we're talking about you."

He thought for a moment. "A relationship not based on sex. It seems so idealistic, so unrealistic."

"She seems to be that kind of woman," I said, turning back to my bed. "The kind that will change you and make you want to be a better man." I thought about what I had said and wondered why I had said it. "Kind of like my wife," I added quickly.

Hawkeye shifted and he walked up behind me. I turned to him and we stood, face to face.

"Are you interested in Linda, BJ?" All traces of joking were absent from his face. He wasn't angry, just confused, and maybe I heard just a little hint of worry. Outside of the OR, I had rarely ever seen him that serious.

"You know me, Hawkeye. I'm happily married," I replied. I turned back to my bed, straightening out my sheets for the fifth time. I could still feel him behind me, his eyes boring holes into my back. Finally he moved back to his cot. We undressed for bed and laid down in silence.

I listened to the sounds around me, and when I was sure that Hawkeye had fallen asleep, I quietly put my clothes and boots on and walked outside.

I needed to clear my head, but from what I didn't know. I knew it was because of Linda that I was so restless, but I didn't know why. Was it because she had a thing for my roommate? Did she remind me that I would never live up to Trapper John McIntyre as I had been told from the first day I arrived? Or maybe it was something else, something completely different, something more terrible. Maybe that moment we stood with our eyes locked on each other meant more to me than it should have.

I shook that thought away. I had been tempted before and I had always come out with my morals intact. This time it was different. I felt guilty and thought of how I'd apologize to Peg, until I realized I hadn't done anything or even thought anything that would condemn me.

My head was a mess, but I decided not to dwell on it anymore. I slipped back inside and tossed my boots and clothes off nonchalantly, hoping I wouldn't wake Hawkeye in the process, realizing later that he was awake anyway. I heard him stir and suspected he knew I had been out. But I didn't have the energy to explain myself to him and bedded down for the night.


	5. Ch 5: Meeting the CO

* * *

I woke up to a light rapping on my door. Sherry slept with her head under a pillow, obviously unable to hear the knocking. I stumbled to the door and tossed it open. Corporal O'Reilly stood there, looking very uncomfortable after seeing me in my pajamas but greeted me warmly anyway.

"I'm sorry to have to wake you, Lieutenant, but Colonel Potter wants to see all the new nurses in his office in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes?" I asked, trying to focus my eyes. "But I look terrible. I haven't even showered!"

"We're used to that, ma'am," he replied. It took me a second to process what I had just said, but when I did, I chuckled at myself.

"Korea?" He nodded kindly in response. "I had almost forgotten."

"It happens all the time," he replied gently. "This place takes a lot of getting used to."

"Will you come get me when it's time to go?"

"I'll be back in ten minutes Lieutenant." He turned to leave, but I grabbed his shoulder before he could scurry off.

"One thing, O'Reilly," I said. "I'm a nurse, not a soldier. Call me Linda."

"Oh," he replied shyly. "People here call me Radar."

"Radar?" He nodded. "Why Radar?"

"Well, sometimes I can tell when things are gonna happen before they happen."

I shook my head. "No, I mean that's not your real name is it?"

"Oh no."

Silence.

"Well, what is your real name?" I asked.

"Oh, um, Walter." It sounded more like a question than an answer. "But everybody around here calls me Radar, and I'm ok with that."

"Ok, Radar," I replied, smiling. "Let me get dressed and I'll be right out."

"Ok," he said, and smiled.

I closed the door and sighed. Korea. My first morning there and I was already frazzled. I searched my bags for my green fatigues and found a pair at the bottom of my suitcase, wrinkled so badly that they could have passed for a vegetable of some sort before being recognized as a uniform.

I really wanted to make a good impression on Potter, so I walked over to Sherry and shook her awake.

"I'm so sorry, Sherry, but I can only find one pair of fatigues right now and they're wrinkled like you wouldn't believe. Is there an iron or a hot rock anywhere nearby that I can use?"

"No iron," she replied simply.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked, trying hard not to get on her bad side. She groaned and rolled over.

"Go into the second drawer of the chest over there," she grumbled, pointing towards a dresser. "I have an extra set of fatigues that I just washed."

"Thank you so much, Sherry. What can I give you to repay you for this?"

"Silence," she mumbled, and dropped back into sleep. I ran over to her bureau and yanked out her fatigues, throwing them on as fast as I could.

There was a problem with the uniform. I had always liked wearing clothes that were a little big for me; sometimes I wore my fiancé's shirts or sweaters, because I never liked looking at my figure. Sherry, being considerably smaller than I was, had clothes that fit her figure fine. On me, though, her shirt stretched over my breasts like I was packing heat and her pants cut into my body. I felt like I was crammed into a mannequin's body, jammed into a good figure against my will.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't by any means fat, I just wasn't used to seeing myself in clothes like that. I felt indecent, exposed, and my attire left very little to the imagination. I sighed and started to change into my wrinkled clothes, thinking that anything was better than the embarrassment I was feeling.

A light rapping echoed through the tent and I heard Radar call for me. "Lieutenant? Are you ready?"

"Can you give me a second?"

"Not really ma'am. All the other nurses are already in Colonel Potter's office. We're all waiting on you."

"Ok, I'm coming."

I ran over to the door and pushed it open quickly, almost knocking Radar off his feet.

"I'm sorry Corporal," I said, steadying him. "You'd better show me to the colonel's office."

He looked at me for a moment and then shook his head as if he was trying to rid water from his hair. "Sorry, ma'am," he started. "Follow me."

Despite myself, I smiled. Radar really was cute in the pre-pubescent, middle-American, farm boy kind of way. His head sat on his shoulders as if his neck had run away and hidden under his oversized uniform in terror. Every time he smiled, he stuck his tongue out a little, shrugged his shoulders, and displayed his deep dimpled cheeks. Behind his large, oval glasses, his eyes glimmered with a naïveté that was hard to find in anyone those days.

I followed him through the compound, trying to avoid eye-contact with anyone until we got into the safety of Radar's office. It was pretty organized, considering the little amount of space that all those documents were crammed into. I looked through the double doors into Colonel Potter's office and saw the back of a woman's head, assuming that it was one of the other nurses. I quickly smiled at Radar and ran through the doors.

Colonel Potter looked up from his desk, a cool expression on his face. His steely gray hair shone in the light from the grimy window to my right and his face softened into a stern little smile.

"I'm so sorry, Colonel," I started but I stopped in mid-sentence. All the officers were lined up on either side of him: Major Burns and Major Houlihan to his right. A man I recognized as the camp chaplain along with Hawkeye and BJ were on his left.

"What kept you, Lieutenant?" the Colonel asked not angrily, to my relief, but genuinely curious.

"There was a problem with my uniform, sir."

"It looks fine to me," Hawkeye retorted, smiling at me. I shot him a glance then smiled at Colonel Potter.

"I'mLinda Florence, sir," I said. Major Houlihan made a noise in her throat, no doubt wanting me to salute, but I pretended that I didn't hear her.

"It's good to have you here, Lieutenant," he said back. "You didn't miss much. We're just about to introduce all the officers on this post just in case you missed meeting them yesterday."

I fell into line, hoping to blend in as best I could. Actually, I was hoping that the floor would swallow me up and pull me into the ground forever, but joining the other nurses in line was the only thing I could do. There were five nurses, including myself.

The one furthest from me looked like she should be in a magazine rather than a war. She wasn't a real woman but a caricature, an exaggeration of what a woman should look like with her long legs, tiny waist, and kempt, blonde hair.

The woman standing next to her was a petit redhead; freckles covered the nose and cheeks of her genuinely kind face.

Next to her was a busty brunette. This woman looked like a tank, wide and aggressive, her long brown hair tied into a tight braid at the back of her neck. She looked like she belonged in the military.

The woman standing directly next to me was a blonde girl who hardly looked like she had finished puberty, let alone looked old enough to enlist in the army.

I pulled my gaze away from the other nurses and back at Colonel Potter who had begun introducing the officers.

He pointed at Major Burns: "This is Major Frank Burns; he's one of the surgeons as well as second in command."

Next was Major Houlihan: "You girls all know Major Margaret Houlihan, our chief nurse. She's the one you girls go to if there's a problem and if need be, she can come to me."

Next, Colonel Potter pointed to the chaplain. He had a kind face and a cross around his neck which shone bright silver against his black undershirt: "This is Father Francis Mulcahy, our only chaplain on the post. He handles all denominations of faith and you can always go to him if you need to get something off your chest."

Last were BJ and Hawkeye. "This is our chief surgeon Captain Pierce-"

"You can always come to me if you want something on your chest."

"Captain Pierce!" Houlihan and Burns screamed simultaneously.

The other nurses giggled nervously, not quite knowing what to make of Hawkeye. They no doubt had heard all the tales about him from the older nurses and were most likely wondering if they would be written into his legendary story.

He stole a glance at me and winked. I smiled, hoping my heart melting in my chest wasn't visible to everyone in the room.

"Next to the rabble-rouser is Captain BJ Hunnicutt." He smiled as Hawkeye applauded for him. BJ took a quick bow and raised his head just in time to lock eyes with me. I smiled shyly and turned my head away.

Colonel Potter gestured to himself. "And I, of course, am Colonel Sherman T. Potter, surgeon and commanding officer." He paused for a moment, allowing all the names and faces to sink in. "Now, I yield the floor to Major Houlihan who will tell you about your duties and responsibilities while you're stationed here at the good old 4077th."

Major Houlihan cleared her throat and walked slowly to the spot that Potter had moved out of. She put both of her hands on his desk and leaned in, creating an air of superiority, which I hated.

"You nurses are here for one reason: to aid the doctors."

"I sure need the aid every once in a while," Hawkeye snickered. Houlihan shot him a razor sharp glare and turned back to the nurses. I could almost see the smoke rising from her ears and I could also tell that Hawkeye thoroughly enjoyed pushing her buttons.

"You are required to help in the operating room whenever you are called and will rotate shifts in the post operative ward as some of you got a taste for last night." She fired an icy stare my way. "Just to make sure there is no confusion at all on this point, I would like to emphasize that I will not tolerate disobedience. Your actions could cause lives to be lost and if you defy any of the officers, including myself, you will be put on report and appropriate consequences will follow."

A tense pause followed, as if all of us girls were thinking of ways we could avoid Houlihan's wrath at any cost.

"Who's for cocktails?" Hawkeye said over the silence. He and BJ raised their hands and everyone laughed (with the exception of Majors Burns and Houlihan), thankful for the break in the tension.

Colonel Potter shook his head, a wide grin still plastered on his face. "Ok ladies, you're dismissed."

The nurses saluted, except for me, and they filed out one after the other like toy ducks dragged on a string behind a child. I stayed behind and waited for Hawkeye to come out from behind Colonel Potter's desk. He maneuvered his body around the blocky furniture and embraced me.

"So, how was our little girl's first day?" BJ asked, following Hawkeye from behind the desk as we all made our way into Radar's office. Radar was nowhere to be found.

"It was hard to wake up and remember that I was in the middle of a war," I said. "But other than that, it's been ok."

BJ turned to Hawkeye and smiled. "Our little baby's growing up so fast."

Hawkeye stared at me, a strange little smile on his face, and quickly scanned me from head to toe.

"So fast," he repeated. I punched him in the stomach and he made a small groaning sound somewhere halfway between the sound pain and pleasure.

"I thought I told you to stay away from Captain Pierce, Lieutenant," I heard from behind me. I whipped around and Major Houlihan stood behind me with her arms crossed, Major Burns stood behind her like a loyal dog.

"You were serious about that, Major?" I asked, trying desperately to play dumb.

"I never slip up, Lieutenant," she snarled.

"That's Frank's job," BJ said to me, a playful look on his face.

"Captain Hunnicutt!" Margaret screamed.

"What's going on here?" Colonel Potter yelled, pushing open the doors to his office and surveying the scene. He obviously had dealt with many skirmishes between the majors and captains before and he sounded more bored than concerned.

"I told Lieutenant Florence to stay away from Captain Pierce and she has disobeyed me."

"Why would you ask her to do something like that?" Colonel Potter asked, looking at me questioningly. I shrunk a little at his gaze. I was already in trouble with the C.O. and I hadn't even been there a full two days.

"You must have heard her in OR yesterday, Colonel," Major Houlihan whined. "She was insulting Major Burns and it was because Captain Pierce had some sort of influence."

"I very much doubt that, Major," Potter said, glancing at everyone in the group. "She had just gotten off a plane into a different country and in the middle of a war, she was tired, and as soon as she gets here there's a flood of wounded. Don't be so hard on her, Margaret. Maybe you've forgotten what it's like to be a newcomer, but I don't." He put his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly gesture. "Will you be a little nicer to the Majors in the future, Lieutenant?"

"I'll try sir," I replied quietly. He smiled at me and patted my arm.

"There, it's all settled. Now I'm going to write the misses so I'll need a little quiet. Everyone vamoose!"

We all walked out like children who had just been reprimanded for naughty behavior, arms crossed, eyes down, and feeling the shame of something very trivial.

The second the door of Radar's office closed, Burns and Houlihan turned to Hawkeye, BJ, and myself and began berating us.

"How dare you conduct yourself in that matter, Captain Pierce!" Houlihan started. "I'm trying to keep my nurses' minds on their jobs and you come along and foul it all up!"

"It's no wonder the work in this outfit has become so sloppy," Frank added in, nodding at Major Houlihan in agreement.

"I think your work was pretty foul before I sloppyed it all up," Hawkeye said. His brow furrowed in confusion and he turned to BJ.

"The other way around, Hawk," he replied. I laughed, realizing a second later that it was the wrong thing to do.

Frank slowly walked up to me and looked down at me like I was a foul latrine instead of a person.

"I'll have you whipped before you can say-"

"Sadism?" I finished.

Hawkeye and BJ broke into a peal of laughter and Frank screwed up his face and marched away, Margaret in tow.


	6. Ch 6: A Drink in the Swamp

* * *

Hawkeye placed one hand on Linda's back and took her by the arm with the other. "I think this vicious slandering of Frank Burns' character calls for a toast!" he proclaimed. I took her other arm and we dragged her towards the swamp.

"A toast? This early?" she asked. Hawkeye looked at her fondly. The truest sign of a newcomer was someone who was ignorant about the intense amount of alcohol consumption in camp.

An explosion of color erupted from behind the swamp as Klinger swished up to us. He was wearing a full-length, purple, floral evening gown with sequins that caught the sun, making him shimmer as he traipsed about, topped off with a white, wide-brimmed hat and his trusty rifle.

"And how are my favorite captains doing on this fine afternoon?" he asked, addressing Hawkeye and myself.

"I'm holding myself back, Klinger," Hawkeye responded. Klinger laughed but stopped when he caught sight of Linda.

"And who do we have here?"

"This is Lieutenant Linda Florence, one of our new nurses," I said. "Linda, meet Corporal Maxwell Klinger."

He extended his hand and she did the same.

"How do you do, Lieutenant?" he asked, eying her from top to toes.

"I'm doing very well," Linda said, trying desperately not to laugh. "I bet you get this all the time, but I really like your dress."

Klinger's eyes widened and a smile played across his face. "Really?" He began to get excited. "I made this one myself. It's a little too small for me in the bust area because I ran out of fabric. You know how hard it is to requisition lilac flower print in a war zone?"

"I can imagine," Linda replied, smiling.

"Well, I've got to finish my sentry duty and then report for KP," Klinger said. He turned to Hawkeye and me. "I got extra KP on account of Major Burns finding that letter I was telling you about. The one to General Hammond with the enclosed picture of me in my negligee." He extended his hand again and Linda took it. "Really nice to meet you Lieutenant."

"The pleasure's all mine, Corporal," she replied, a wide smile spreading across her face."

Klinger fixed his hat, smoothed out his dress, and waltzed off to Radar's office, his ensemble lightly fluttering in the breeze.

"There goes Klinger, the son and daughter I never had," Hawkeye said.

Linda turned around and faced us. "Was that a man in a dress?" she asked, laughing.

"No," I said. "That was Maxwell Klinger in a floor-length evening gown and matching hat."

"Should I even ask why?"

"Klinger is a great soldier and a good guy," I began. "But he wants to get out so bad he'll do anything to prove he's crazy, including wearing women's clothing."

"Well, the best of luck to him," she said, beaming. "This certainly is a colorful camp."

"We try our very best," Hawkeye said. "Now how about that toast?" He ushered us to the swamp, opening the door for Linda and me and slamming it shut.

"Did the place get dirtier since last night?" Linda asked, laughing.

"Our garbage multiplies on its own," I replied. "But try not to look, it gets nervous."

"I'll turn my head if I see anything less than decent," she said.

Hawkeye hustled around his bed, brushing it off to make it suitable for Linda to sit on. I wiped the martini glasses clean with a dirty rag.

"So, what do you really think of the place so far?" I asked Linda, pouring the twenty-minute old gin into three glasses. "And none of this, 'I really like it here' stuff. We want the truth."

"I think that you two are trying to get me drunk," she said, laughing. "How many times a day do you guys drink?"

"How many hours are in a day again?" asked Hawkeye as he accepted his martini from me.

Linda laughed and took the glass from my hand. "This is the only one, though. I can't hold my liquor to save my life."

"We have an extra tank if you need it," I said, smiling at her.

"Seriously, though. I'm terrible with booze."

"Fair enough," I replied. I glanced over at Hawkeye who was staring at Linda in a rather undignified way: his tongue was practically sticking out.

She noticed his stares and laughed. "What is it?"

"It's just I've never seen you dressed like that before."

"Well, as soon as I find somehow to iron my fatigues I'll never dress like this again, so enjoy it while you can."

"What do you think I'm doing now?"

She found one of Hawkeye's magazines and threw it at him. He ducked, but not in time, and it hit him square on the forehead.

We laughed as Hawkeye rubbed his head. "Remind me to pick you first when we play camp baseball," he said. He changed the tone quickly. "A toast! What to?"

"To us!" Linda yelled, raising her glass.

"To them!" Hawkeye countered.

"To you!" I said, raising my glass to Linda. "For your gift of disobedience to your military superiors who, by strange coincidence, are everyone's mental inferiors."

We all drank. Linda began to sputter.

"I forgot that this isn't really gin," she said, giggling.

"Unfortunately gin is copyrighted, we'd get sued if we made the real stuff," I said, pouring her another glass. She shook her head.

"I really shouldn't drink this early," she said, putting her glass down on the table beside her. "If I'm smashed during my shift in post-op, Houlihan will have my hide."

"When do you go on?" Hawkeye asked.

"Fourteen hundred hours," Linda replied. "So two o'clock?"

"Ah," Hawkeye said, placing his glass gently on the table then bouncing up. "You have won a romantic middle of the day with our not-so-eligible non-bachelor, Captain BJ Hunnicutt, M.D. in the remote paradise of the 4077th's post operative ward."

"Are you going to be there too, Hawk?" she asked. Hawkeye laughed.

"I am the lucky doctor who does not have post-op duty all day today. Unfortunately, I'm the unlucky doctor who has it first thing in the morning. Twelve midnight. No-hundred hours."

Linda walked up to him and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "You should get some sleep, Hawk. You look tired."

"I always look tired," he replied. "Korea has an amazing night life."

"Did you sleep at all?"

"There was that five minutes that I can't account for. So I either slept or was abducted by aliens. Other than that…"

"Sleep, Hawkeye. That's an order."

He put his hands on his hips, faking irritation. "You can't order me, I'm a higher rank than you are."

"That's true, but I have more sense than you do," she laughed.

"Good point." He threw himself on his cot. She fixed the covers over him, making sure he was completely covered and soon his breathing slowed and came out in even rasps.

She patted his arm and walked past me, nudging me out the door. We walked a few paces from the tent and she whispered, "Has he been doing ok?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, leaning against a jeep parked in the compound.

She climbed into the bucket seat of the jeep and crossed her arms as if she were cold.

"It's been pretty intense for him with my being here. I just don't want to mess up his routine or make him uncomfortable at all."

"He'll adjust, Linda," I said, dropping into the driver's seat. "Hawkeye is strong and he can figure things out by himself, he just needs time."

I ran my hands along the circumference of the wheel, resting at the ignition. My hand ached to turn it and just drive, drive away from the hospital, from the wounded, from the military, from the world in general. I just wanted to be away, but I knew that Uncle Sam didn't like when people stole his toys, so I rested my hands on the wheel and just pretended I was somewhere else.

The jeep squeaked behind me and Linda plopped into the passenger seat.

"Let's go for a ride." I was a bit shocked and for a moment I thought she had inherited Radar's ability to read people's minds.

"Excuse me?"

"Let's go for a ride. Rev it up and just drive forever." Her eyes fixed on a spot in the horizon and went glassy for a moment. "Just drive."

"If I could, Linda, I would," I replied. "But you haven't been in the army for long. Being absent without leave is somewhat frowned upon and stealing government property at the same time is just adding insult to injury."

"Well, then we'll tell someone. Just say, 'Hey someone, we're leaving forever, do you mind?' If they say 'no,' then we have leave, right?"

She threw her head back and laughed. Her jaw curved and became one with her neck so elegantly that it was almost too perfect. Her laugh was harsh, but not forced or fake like most of the laughter I had heard since I got here. It was real, genuine laughter and it was music in the din of the afternoon.

She kept nudging me. "Come on, BJ." "Start the engine." "I'll give you a nickel."

I laughed. "How badly do you want to go?"

"If I'm going to be vacationing in Korea I have to at least see more than the dusty field I'm calling home for the next forever."

"Well, I can give you the dime tour." I motioned to the mountains. "Over there is a prime spot for snipers to hide and fire on while we're all unarmed. Past the mountains is the thirty eighth parallel, where all this garbage started. Go past North Korea and you're smack dab in Communist China." I looked at her and sighed. "Does that sound fun to you?"

Her face brightened. "Not with that attitude, it doesn't."

She pushed me out of the jeep and I had to catch the side to keep from falling on my face. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm commandeering this vehicle whether you like it or not Mr. Pessimist and if you don't come with me and tell me where to go, I will get lost and captured and probably shot." She scooted over and put her hands on the wheel. "What's it gonna be, Captain?"

I shook my head and jumped into the backseat of the jeep. I put my lips to her ear. "Drive straight and at Rosie's bar, take a left. Drive for five minutes then turn right at a small dirt road."

"What's at the end of the road?" she asked. I climbed into the passenger seat and smiled slightly. "You'll see."


	7. Ch 7: Beauty in Korea

* * *

I felt a buzz of excitement. It wasn't going into the great unknown that I was excited by, but the fact that I wasn't scared about it. I could potentially die today and it made me feel more alive by the second.

I started the ignition, smiled at BJ and pressed hard on the gas pedal. We bolted away from the 4077th at a frantic pace and I turned a hard left after we passed Rosie's bar.

We drove in silence for a while. The wind whipped my hair without rules or reason. Sometimes my hair would cover my face so completely that I had to slow down and push it out of the way and sometimes my hair would fan out behind me like a tail. The wind purged my mind of all my troublesome thoughts and all I felt was the cool air on my face.

I glanced over at BJ. His eyes were closed and a small smile played across his face. I knew this was something that he needed, more so than I did. He was the one with the responsibility, with all the pressure forced on him. That was the real job of a nurse, to relieve the tension that doctors felt constantly. I smiled at myself. I was very good at my job.

I spotted a dirt road and nudged BJ, slowing down the jeep so he could get a good look. The road sliced a grove of trees in half and the darkness of the overhanging foliage swallowed the rest of the trail from sight.

We communicated without words:

I nudged him and pointed at the path.

He nodded and smiled slyly.

I raised my eyebrows in question and shook my head a little.

He took the wheel and began to turn it, no doubt amused by my sudden uncertainty.

I grabbed the wheel back from him, took a deep breath, and turned the jeep.

We waded into the darkness as the trees wrapped around us like a cocoon. It was like going into a living tunnel that had no end. Suddenly, the sun shone through the trees and a vibrant green color shone all around as if the leaves were made of emeralds.

BJ began to smile as I glanced over at him and I stopped the jeep in the middle of the road.

"It's really beautiful here, BJ." He glanced over at me and sighed.

"I've never shown this place to anyone, Linda."

"Why not? I think everyone at the 4077th would want to see this."

He lowered his head. "I'm not proud of the way I found it."

Comprehension hit me and I took his hand in mine, offering support without words.

"You ran?"

He nodded.

"About a month after I got here, I snapped. The wounded were coming in like there was no end, the weather was so cold that I couldn't even sleep the nights we weren't in O.R., and I felt so lonely."

He lowered his gaze. "You know the feeling you get when you realize how long it's been since someone's touched you. How it makes you feel completely worthless. I had that.

"One day I just got fed up with it all. I threw everything I could into the nearest jeep, jumped in, and drove. I didn't even know where I was going. I didn't remember how to get to Kimpo, I had no idea what I would do, so I veered off the main road to this trail and I was so amazed by what I saw that I just let the jeep roll to a stop."

He looked up at the trees and his eyes shone bright. "For some reason it gave me hope. If something this beautiful could exist in a place where people are fighting everywhere, maybe there was hope that it would end someday."

"So you went back?" I asked.

"No. I drove on for a while until my jeep broke down."

I shoved him. "That didn't happen!"

"Truthfully, I had to ride an ox back!"

I grabbed for his arm and missed, falling just in time for him to catch me in his embrace.

We sat like that for a moment. I was perfectly content to lie there in his arms comfortable and, best of all, protected. The trees whistled a tuneless song and the world seemed to shrink to just the two of us. There was no war, no death, nobody but us and the trees.

"We should get back," he said, shattering the silence, bringing me back to reality. I lifted myself out of his grip and sighed.

"You're probably right." I started the engine, put the jeep in gear, and then stopped. I turned to him. "Thank you for this."

He patted my leg. "Thank you."

His answer confused me with its ambiguity. I didn't know whether he meant "thank you for the appreciation", or "thank you for sharing it with me." I pondered his answer on the silent drive back to camp, all the while stealing glances at him to try and read his expression. All I could read was the deep look of peace that shone from his face like a sunbeam. That was enough for me.


	8. Ch 8: Revelation

We rounded the corner and the 4077th came into full view. I put the jeep in park and sighed.

"There she is, in all her glory," he said.

"I still can't believe this is all actually happening," I said. "I feel like I'm wading through a dream. One of those dreams that feels like life, but deep down in some corner of your mind you know it's not real."

"I felt the same way when I first came here," he said quietly.

I turned to him. "Does it ever go away?"

"It all switches around. After a while you feel like this is all there is to your reality and the life you led before is the dream."

"That sounds awful."

He put his hands on the dashboard and leaned forward. "It is." But he chuckled to himself. "Of course, that's just my opinion. You can always talk to Burns and Houlihan if you want the other side. They both love it here."

"That's only because they have each other," I replied.

"Are you telling me you already know about Houlihan and Burns?" BJ asked. I put my hand on his shoulder.

"All the nurses do in their free time is gossip. I hate that kind of prattle myself, but I do listen. Apparently, Hotlips and Ferret-Face are a hot topic of conversation."

BJ laughed, his smile warming my heart. "Why don't we grab something to eat at the mess tent?" he suggested.

"Good thinking," I replied. I shifted the jeep into gear and drove it to the spot where we found it. I put it in park, turned it off, and hopped out of the car feeling very good-humored. BJ slowly stepped out of the jeep and turned to me as I bounded up to him. He looked sad and I stopped. "You ok?" I asked.

He gingerly put his hand on my shoulder. "Enjoy this energy while you can, ok?"

"I plan to have it for a while, BJ," I said.

"I hope so." He shook his head. "Sorry. Why don't we go and get some food?"

"Sure," I said, trying to figure him out. He was a very confusing person. One second he was in high spirits and the next he looked like someone had just killed his dog. _Maybe it's a byproduct of life here_, I thought. I shook my head and followed him to the mess tent.

A group of nurses crossed our path of which the only one I recognized was Sherry. The other nurses clustered in a small group while Sherry stepped out.

"So, Nightingale," Sherry said, smiling. "How are my fatigues going for you?"

"They certainly got me some unwanted attention," I replied, tugging on the tight uniform.

"Let me guess, from Hawkeye?" The nurses in the group behind her all looked up at the mention of Hawk's name. I laughed.

"Well, Hawkeye and I knew each other before I came here. I lived in Boston when he was in residency."

"Is that so?" Sherry asked.

BJ touched me on the shoulder. "I'll go get us some seats, ok?"

"Thanks, BJ," I said. He gave my shoulder a squeeze and strode into the mess tent. I smiled and turned back to Sherry.

"You do know that one is taken?" she asked once BJ was out of earshot. "That's Mr. Happily Married MD."

"I know. He's just a friend."

"You guys got chummy fast," she said a little nastily.

"Well, Hawkeye introduced us," I informed her. The nurses in the group looked up a second time when they heard Hawkeye's name.

She stepped closer to me. "Let me give you a nickel's worth of free advice, ok Linda? No man and woman in this place can have a friendship. It doesn't exist in a war zone. All that can happen here is necessity. The need for a warm body, the need for a release from the tension. You get it?"

"Sherry," I started. "I'm new here and few people have taken it upon themselves to befriend me. I appreciate anyone trying to make me feel welcome and it just so happens that BJ has gone very far out of his way to make me feel as comfortable here as I possibly can. I like being around him and Hawkeye and unless I have my signals crossed, they like being around me. I'd like to think of that as a friendship, but if it's something else then I'll give it another title. For now, however, Hawkeye and BJ are my friends and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to give me advice that might make me think twice about that."

I turned to leave, but Sherry grabbed my arm.

"Hey, Nightingale, I'm not trying to break up anything between you and Hawkeye or BJ." She stole a glance at the Swamp. "Just be careful. Things escalate quickly here and Hawkeye Pierce has broken more than one heart with the promise of friendship."

I looked around and noticed the nurses had formed a circle around me and all of them were nodding.

"Thank you for looking out for me, Sherry," I said genuinely. "But I'm not looking to be anything but Hawkeye's friend." Of course that wasn't true, but the group of girls around me was making me claustrophobic. Sherry let me go and I broke through the circle, rushing to the mess tent.

The mess tent was just that: a tent. Long tables and benches littered the room and all that was overhead was a thin, olive drab, canvas ceiling. It was held up with wooden poles and held together by a thin wooden frame, each looked as if they would fall over with a sharp exhale of breath.

I spotted BJ at a corner table drinking a cup of coffee. I walked over to him and sat across the table.

He looked up at me and smiled. "What was that about?" he asked, gesturing to the group of nurses still grouped outside, talking amongst themselves.

"They heard that Hawkeye was a friend of mine and wanted to know his favorite color," I lied unconvincingly, but he dropped it. "So, what's good here?" I asked, gesturing to the queue of people in front of a counter on the other side of the room.

He smiled. "One of the telltale signs of new personnel: not knowing just how bad the food is."

He stood up and gestured me to follow.

As we neared the food counter, I smelled a mix of many things, none of which registered in my brain as something edible. My face wrinkled in disgust and BJ, catching sight of my expression, laughed heartily.

"See what I mean?" He grabbed a metal tray for me and nodded to the man behind the counter.

"This is Lieutenant Florence. Linda, this is Igor."

Igor nodded to me but didn't say a word.

"So what'sgood here?"I asked.

Igor stood behind the counter wearing an apron and looking very uncomfortable being directly above the steaming trays of food. He was a tall man with a hooked nose and a vacant expression. His mousy brown hair hung unceremoniously out from under his olive green hat and his eyes widened in what looked like fear at BJ's question.

"Are you kidding?" he replied. But he moved into auto-pilot, naming the dishes and placing them on the tray in BJ's hand. Mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, turkey, meatloaf, creamed corn, and apple sauce all slid onto my tray with an unappetizing sclat.

"It was nice to meet you, Igor," I said, but he was already helping the next person in line. I would have thought he was very rude except for the look on his face. He looked like someone who had been singing the same song over and over again and although the brain goes numb, the person keeps singing.

I decided not to wave and went back to the table, followed soon by BJ who refilled his mug with coffee. I sat down and he sat across from me.

"Igor isn't really like that, but he's been pulling KP for about a month now and his mind isn't what is used to be, and that's saying something."

I laughed. "I read the expression. Someone should put that poor guy out of his misery. Shoot him in the leg, send him in the front, something to break the monotony."

He smiled, pushing the tray in front of me.

"Well, Lieutenant, dig in."

I finally noticed what was on my tray and my stomach lurched. The mashed potatoes looked ok, but they smelled like rotten socks, the peas were orange and the carrots were green, I couldn't tell the difference between the meatloaf and the turkey, and my creamed corn and apple sauce had run together making a mixture that I wouldn't even feed a starving dog.

"Do I have to?" I asked, looking at my food with disgust.

"No. But malnourishment isn't all it's cracked up to be," he replied.

I picked at the food before putting my fork down.

"So, what can you tell me about this place?"

He sighed.

"Luckily, you've already seen the worst part."

"What's that?"

He threw a questioning glance my way. "You didn't notice the bruised and bleeding soldiers in the O.R?"

"Of course I did," I said, and stopped. I expected him to say more. Finally I got it. "Oh, you're talking about the O.R. That's the worst part."

"Give the pretty lady a cigar," he said.

"But isn't that why we're here?" I continued. "To treat the sick?"

He put his mug back on the table and folded his hands in front of him.

"We don't treat the sick, Linda," he said, his voice growing cold. "These kids in the O.R are not suffering from the flu or chicken pox. They are suffering from man-made hurts: bullets, shrapnel, grenade wounds. There's nothing regular about that."

I shoved my tray aside rather roughly and it knocked over the salt and pepper shakers in its hasty retreat. "I hate the idea of these people being hurt because another human being shot at them, BJ. But I have to admit, I get a rush in the O.R."

BJ nodded. "I know how you feel, Linda. I come from many generations of doctors. When my father used to talk about his experiences in O.R, I used to get chills. The tension, the panic, it was intoxicating. Then I came here. It took me a while, but I began to notice the people I was operating on. They weren't nameless or faceless anymore, but people I had to cut open to take out what another human being put in. One day it clicked: I hated it all. The sights, the smells, the feeling of this place. And I still hate it." He hesitated before placing his hand on mine. "I pray you don't have to have the same epiphany when you're wading in blood like I did, Linda."

I took my hand out from under his. "I hope not too, BJ."

I lifted myself off the bench and hurried out of the mess tent. Pushing the door open, I took a deep breath, wondering why what BJ had just said bothered me. I thought that the surgeons, like me, would love the idea of O.R. I never thought that joining up would be all peaches and cream, but I never dreamed it would make me think twice about my career path.

I sighed. _I'll have to wait it out_, I thought to myself. One thing was for sure, Korea wasn't at all what I expected it would be.


	9. Ch 9: History

"I think I scared her a little, Hawk," I said, pouring myself a glass of gin. "But she really surprised me. The way she talked about war in O.R, I could have sworn she was-"

"Like us," Hawkeye finished for me.

I nodded and took a swig from my glass.

"The thing about Linda is she loves the O.R. She always has. She lived for the rush. Adrenaline was like a drug for her."

"But in O.R," I started. "She talked about how she couldn't understand how people could hurt each other like that."

Hawkeye threw his robe around his shoulders and stood up. "Linda is different. She's like a mechanic who hates to see a car broken, but loves to fix it."

"I guess I can understand that."

"I think we all can, Beej," he said, laughing. "I think we're all guilty of loving our job a little too much, forgetting that we're not fixing engines but people. I know I am."

I looked into my glass, as if the gin in it would suddenly give me the answers to all of my questions. The truth was, as much as I hated to admit it Hawkeye hit the nail right on the head. I too had been guilty of those feelings. Of course, coming to Korea had changed all that.

Since the contents of my glass hadn't magically shown me the meaning of life, I guzzled the rest, set the glass down and muttered, "I should get ready for post-op."

"I hope it's all you wanted and more," Hawkeye said, grabbing his towel. "I'm taking a shower. Tell Linda I'll be thinking of her."

He shoved the door aside and walked into the compound, following various nurse's paths with his eyes. Despite myself, I laughed. There was no rest for Hawkeye Pierce.

I threw my boots on and pushed the door aside. I could never get excited about post-op, but I was eager to see Linda again and apologize for upsetting her. A very foreboding cloud formation was inching overhead and as I watched, the light from the sun was slowly extinguished by the darkness. I had hoped the few brilliant days we'd had was the beginning of a trend, but to no avail. We were looking at rain again and I was looking at yet another long stretch of cold nights.

I walked into post-op and spotted Linda. She was sitting at a soldier's side laughing like she was a million miles away from this place. Instead of interrupting her, I watched quietly.

She sat very still on the foot of the bed, listening intently to the soldier talking about his home town. Her hair hung slightly over her face, obscuring her mouth from my view, but her eyes shone at the soldier lying in front of her.

"Well, I've been living in Boston for the past seven years, but I grew up in California."

"I've never been to California, but I hear about it all the time," said the soldier. "Does the sun really shine all the time there?"

She laughed throatily.

"Not all the time, but it is sunny a lot." She leaned in closer to him. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Of course," he said.

She made a big deal of looking over her shoulder, playing like it was a big secret and then turned back to the soldier.

"I like the sun just fine, but I love the rain."

"The rain?" he asked. "Why the rain?"

"The sound," she said simply. "The sun doesn't make any sounds. You can't close your eyes and listen to the sun shining. But the rain. The rain is a symphony."

"You can have all the rain you want, Lieutenant," said the soldier, laughing. "Give me a bright sun any day of the week."

"From the looks of those clouds overhead you'll be getting all the rain you want, Linda," I said from across the room.

She turned to me and her face brightened. "Really?"

"A genuine Korean rainstorm," I said, walking towards her and the soldier.

"The army must've got my order," she said. She handed the soldier's chart to me. "This is Corporal Samuel Rogers. Sam, this is BJ."

"You two are already on a first name basis?" I asked, taking a look at his chart.

"He's definitely a charmer, BJ," she said, smiling back at Corporal Rogers. "Plus, he was asking some advice. He wants to get into medicine."

"Really?" I said. "Well, the first thing you need to do is heal and then we can tackle why it's not good to have shrapnel in your stomach."

"Shrapnel, bad," said Rogers like he was checking it off a shopping list. "See, I'm learning already."

Linda laughed. "Are you sure you want to be a doctor and not a comedian?"

"Do comedians get as many nurses as doctors do?" he asked, a bright smile on his face.

"I've had my fair share of innocent crushes on certain doctors," Linda said, glancing over at me and winking. "But none of those came to fruition." Of course she was talking about Hawkeye and, for some reason, it made me uncomfortable. "You'd have to ask the doctor for some first hand experience." She patted me on the arm and strolled towards the next soldier. I watched her and as she came up to the next wounded kid, his eyes lit up and a smile spread across his face.

"She's pretty neat, huh Doc?" Rogers said to me. I sat at his bed and took his wrist in mine, timing his pulse.

"You said it, Rogers," I replied. After a moment, I put his wrist down and wrote the information on his chart. I stood up and hung the clipboard on the hook at the foot of his bed. "You take it easy, Rogers," I said, and began to leave.

"Hey, Doc?" he asked. I turned around.

"What is it, Corporal?"

"When she was talking about the doctors she had crushes on, was she talking about you?"

I laughed. "No, Rogers. She was talking about someone else."

"You sure?" he asked. I threw a questioning look at him.

"You worried about something, Rogers?"

"Not really, Doc," he replied. "But if someone like that was into a doctor, what kind of chance would a dope like me have?"

I sat back by his bed. "Lieutenant Florence is the kind of woman who doesn't care if you're a digger of latrines or the president as long as you are honest and a good person."

"You like her too?" he asked. I was taken aback by his presumption.

"She's a good friend, Corporal," I said, putting an emphasis on friend. "And that's all."

I left in a huff, walking over to the desk across the room. I began to write down Corporal Rogers' information, and found myself gripping the pen so hard that my knuckles turned white. I took a deep breath.

_Calm down, BJ_, I thought to myself.

"A quarter for your thoughts?" I heard a voice say from behind me.

"Isn't it supposed to go 'a penny for your thoughts' Linda?"

She sat down on the desk in front of me, sitting on the paper I was writing on.

"I always figured people's thoughts are worth more than a measly penny," she said, smiling. "I didn't get to apologize for my actions today in the mess tent."

"I should be the one to apologize. I didn't mean to lay so much on you on your second day here."

"You're just looking out for me, BJ. You did nothing wrong. I haven't been here as long as you have and you know how it works. The truth is I got so upset because I don't want you to be right."

She looked down on me like an angel in a vision. The light from the dusty bulb above circled her head like a halo and her face was soft in a half smile, part happiness and part grief.

"You're sitting on my report, Lieutenant," I said, smiling. She glanced down at my paper, half hidden under her pants, and laughed.

"Well, then you're just going to have to talk to me," she said dignified, shifting her position so more of my paper was under her. "Tell me about your home."

"Why?" I asked, brow furrowed into a questioning stare.

"Because I want to know more about you if we're going to be friends," she said, her voice becoming high and sing-song like. "Come on, where are you from?"

"Mill Valley, California," I said, reluctantly. It was always difficult for me to talk about home when I was so far away from it.

"And?" she asked, egging me on.

"And what?"

"Wife? Kids? Dog? Picket fence?"

"All of the above," I said smiling. I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Linda. It's just hard for me to talk about it when it's been so long."

She put her hand on my shoulder, becoming serious. "I understand, BJ. And I'm sorry if I brought up anything that's going to upset you." Her serious disposition melted away and she perked up. "Do you want to hear about my home in California, I mean, back when I lived there?"

"I'd love to," I replied, shifting my weight in my chair. I glanced over the room to make sure everything was ok before she started her story.

"I was born in San Francisco and lived in a house in the city for a short time, but I don't remember it at all. Then my family moved up North a bit and lived in a house in the heart of Redwood country right on the coast. Some of my earliest memories were waking up to the smell of pine then opening my window and looking out over the beach."

"That sounds nice," I said, quietly.

"It was a wonderful place to grow up. So few people were around during the cold season that it seemed like me and my parents were the only people in the world. Maybe that's why I like rain, because when I think of the rain, I remember the stillness and the peace of my home. I lived there for 11 years in the shadow of those big trees."

Her head dropped a little. "Then my dad died. One day his heart stopped and that was it. My mom packed us up and we moved clear across the country, to Boston.

"Everything happened to me in Boston. I became a teenager; I drove my first car and had my sweet-sixteen party and my first kiss on the same night."

I smiled.

"When I finally became an adult, I had no idea what I would do with myself. Everyone I ever knew got married out of high school and had kids, settled down, cleaned house, and became the epitome of the perfect wife. I knew that it wasn't for me, though. Unfortunately, other than the fact that I knew I didn't want to just be 'Mrs. So-and-So' I had no idea what I wanted to do.

"That is, until my mom went in for a routine appendectomy and left with cancer. We were too late to catch it and it was only a matter of time before she was gone. But while she went from hospital to hospital, I saw these nurses flitting from room to room and I was in awe of them. They weren't at home washing dishes, they were helping people, people like my mom."

She looked around the room. Everything had gone still as if everyone was listening to her story, but all eyes were closed.

"I always felt it was my mother's gift to me before she passed," she continued. I saw a few men nearest to us open their eyes and continue listening to her speak. "Whether she knew it or not, she had helped me make up my mind. I wanted to be one of those women who helped people, who gave comfort and strength. So I went to school, studied hard and became a nurse. I started working at a hospital by my apartment, I met John McIntyre and Ben Pierce and the rest is history."

"You're not quite done," I said. "Tell me, Miss Florence, how you came to be sitting here in this makeshift post-op with a gallery of wounded and an unsuccessful draft dodger slash doctor."

She smiled and looked around, no doubt noticing that most of the people in post-op weren't even pretending to sleep anymore.

"Can I tell you later tonight? I have a feeling some of these soldiers aren't as asleep as they think they are."

"Sure, Linda. There's going to be a poker game in the swamp later tonight. You can stop by and once I've lost all my money we can finish our conversation."

She laughed. "Can I play as well, or are no girls allowed?"

I smiled back. "Well, in our fort it's usually boys only, but we can make an exception for you. You have money?"

"A little."

"You attached to it?"

"Why? Are you guys pros?"

"I'm certainly not. It's Radar that you have to worry about."

"The guy who woke me up this morning? The one who blushes when you call him by his real name?"

"That's the one. He's got a real poker face. You'll see when you get there tonight."

"It's a date," she said, patting me on the shoulder. She jumped off the desk and moved to the soldier in the first bed.

"You're not gonna tell us the rest of the story?" he asked, watching her intently as she picked up his chart.

"Well, according to your chart, you should take eavesdropping classes," she said, smiling. "Rule number one is never let the eavesdropee know that they have been eavesdropped."

"I'll do better next time, I promise," he said, winking.

She looked back at me and smiled. I smiled back, feeling the warmth of her glance heat up the inner parts of my soul. I turned to my paperwork. _What an amazing person_, I thought.


	10. Ch 10: Hawkeye the Defender of Virtue

* * *

BJ bounded into the swamp with an energy that only meant something good had happened to him.

"Was the carnage in post-op particularly delightful today?" I asked grumpily. I was going to miss half of the poker game that night because I was in post-op from midnight until three. I had managed to convince Frank, of all people, to take the last half of my shift. _Of course_, I said to myself sarcastically, _the fact that Margaret was in post-op at the same time has nothing to do with it_.

"I managed to have a nice day today, despite yesterday's deluge," he said, tossing his lab coat on the floor and throwing his shirt on his bed. "Linda really is a nice girl."

"Where did that come from?" I asked, yawning. "Did you two take a tour of each other while I wasn't looking?" I asked. I meant it as a joke, but it hit me hard saying it.

"What do you mean by that?" He asked indignantly.

Apparently, it hit him hard too.

"Nothing," I said, picking myself up off my bed and trudging over to the kettle of lukewarm coffee sitting on the heater. "What time is Sydney getting here?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Ten-ish, I think," BJ said, pulling a clean shirt over his head. "So, we've got a few hours."

Sydney Freedman the psychiatrist was one of our favorite poker buddies because, brilliant as he was at reading people, he was terrible at bluffing. Plus, being in Tokyo most of the war, he had acquired a tidy nest egg that I thoroughly enjoyed taking away from him a little at a time.

"Who else is coming?" I asked, pulling my robe tighter against my body. The recent warm weather was beginning to ebb and a chill was in the air. Soon, it would be long, lonely nights with nothing but a stove and the occasional nurse to keep me warm.

"Klinger is coming if he can convince Igor to take sentry duty from him again, Radar will stop by periodically as will Colonel Potter, Zale might show up later, and I invited Linda to come as well."

I whipped around. "Linda?"

He looked at me questioningly. "Yeah."

"You invited Linda?"

"Yeah." He stared at me like I had just spoken in a foreign tongue. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"No, it's just that you'll be here and I'll be in post op."

"It's not as if we're gonna be alone together, Hawk," he said, chuckling. "Half of the camp is showing up for poker tonight."

I shook my head and laughed at myself for being so ridiculous. "You're right," I said.

BJ sat down on his bed. "You like her, don't you?" he asked, smiling.

"I didn't say that!" I replied, throwing myself down on my chair. "Just because she's all I can think of doesn't necessarily mean that..." I trailed off. BJ stared at me, a wide grin on his face, and I caved. "Ok, fine, I give. I like her."

"I knew it," he said, jumping up and pouring himself a drink. "I knew the second she walked in here that she was going to make someone very happy." He took a sip of his martini. "I'm just glad it's you."

"Well, she hasn't made me happy quite yet," I said, grabbing my towel. "I'm gonna take a shower before I have to hit post-op."

"I'm gonna take a close look at the inside of my eyelids," he replied as I pushed the door open and strolled into the compound.

"Good night, sweet prince," I yelled over my shoulder. I strolled toward the shower with a bounce in my step like there hadn't been in ages. _I have a thing for Linda_, I said to myself and smiled. It had been so long since I'd had a genuine crush on anyone that I hardly knew what it was like anymore. But all at once it came back to me; the little fantasies about running off together, her name flashing through my head, all of the symptoms of puppy love.

"Hey Hawkeye!" a voice yelled, jerking me out of my thoughts. I looked around me and into the distance, but I was not able to identify where the voice was coming from. The compound was completely bare with the exception of two nurses who darted from the mess tent to their quarters, and it couldn't have been them because the voice was undoubtedly male.

Suddenly, a hand shot out from behind the shower tent and gestured me near. Instantly, I knew what was going on and I jogged to the spot behind the showers that I had known so well.

I rounded the corner to find a group of soldiers lead by Zelmo Zale, the supply sergeant. His lined face was twisted into a rare grin as he waited to look into the small hole in the back of the nurse's showers and get a good look at what our female personnel had to offer.

"Hey Hawkeye," Zale repeated as he slung his arm around my soldier. "Can you introduce me to her?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"That new nurse, Lieutenant Florence. Can I tell ya, she's got a body that would make a grown man weep. I had to come back for a second look." Several of the men nodded in agreement.

"How do you know anything about her body?" I asked, although I knew the answer. He gestured to the hole in the tent where another soldier was readying himself for a look. "I'd invite you to take a sneak peek, but I bet you've already seen the whole movie," Zale said, elbowing me in the ribs.

I shrugged him off, marched to the hole, threw my body in front of it, and firmly declared, "This peep show is over and anyone who thinks otherwise is gonna get my fist in his eye."

A surge of complaint came at me, especially from those who had not had a chance to peek. Some threw up their hands, exclaimed how unfair life was and left, but others continued to protest. "I don't care if you don't like it, I'm pulling rank on all of you. Now get out of here before I do something I'll regret, like join the army and then report you."

More left, some kept complaining, but I had made it official. Although I had probably peeked through that tent more often than all those other men put together, I felt an obligation to Linda.

"It's not fair, Captain," someone said to me.

"If life was fair none of us would be in Korea in the first place so get used to it," I said, pointing away from the tent. "There will be no more peeping from any of you."

"Well, well, well. Hawkeye Pierce, Defender of Virtue."

I turned around and gazed at Linda standing behind me wrapped in a forest green towel with wet hair daintily dripping down her shoulders.

"It has a nice ring to it," I replied, smiling at her. "It makes me sleep better at night knowing the nurses of this outfit are safe from lewd soldiers whose only preoccupation is sex."

"Well, we nurses thank you from the top of our shower caps to the tips of our toes," she said, throwing me a mock salute and laughing.

"I'll take whatever I can get," I replied, returning her salute. "Why don't you thank me by coming over and trading in your shower cap for a nightcap?" I asked, slipping my arm around her shoulder and heading towards the swamp.

She laughed and walked with me. "Just let me go back to my tent and put on something a little more substantial than this flimsy towel."

"All the way back to your tent?" I said in anguish. "It'll be at least a minute or two until you'll be back. How about I let you use BJ's robe."

"Is he ok with you lending out his things?"

"Sure, I do it all the time." She threw a questioning glance my way. "Do you not trust me?" I asked, playing hurt.

"I never have," she smiled, nudging me softly in the ribs. "But maybe you'll surprise me."

I turned to her and put my hand on her shoulder. "Count on it."

She shot a smile back at me that almost melted the soles of my boots.

_Oh yeah_, I said to myself. _You've got it bad_.


	11. Ch 11: Anytime, Any Day, Anywhere

* * *

Hawkeye and Linda strolled in, him with his arm around her and barely disguising how much he wanted to see what was under her dark green towel.

"Hey Beej, I thought you were going to sleep," he said, plopping down on his bed.

"I got to my bed and my body decided to play a cruel trick on me: I'm not tired anymore."

"Isn't that the way it always works out?" Linda said, laughing and sitting on Hawkeye's bed next to him. "Maybe since you're too tired to sleep, you'll want to stay up and chat with us for a while."

"Sure, I always have time for you," I said, smiling at her. She smiled back.

"Ditto," she replied.

"Hey Beej, can Linda borrow your robe?"

I looked at him questioningly.

"He promised to lend me his robe in exchange for my company," Linda said, answering my inquisitive glance.

"I have a company of my own, but sometimes you need a change," he said. "Can she borrow it?"

"My robe?" I asked, still thrown by the request.

"Yeah, Beej," he said, snickering. "I'm not allowed to take mine off unless we're married which we won't be for at least a week. Toss it over."

I searched on the ground for a second, picked up the blue fabric, and threw it to Linda. She caught it and in one fluid motion slipped it over her body while she took the towel out from underneath and wrapped it around her hair like a turban.

"Thanks BJ," she said, grinning at me. "I promise I'll have it back for you soon. You won't even know it's gone."

"It's no problem, keep it as long as you need," I said, shifting uncomfortably. Seeing Linda in my robe and, above all, having it happen to me in such a flash threw me for a loop to say the least. The light blue fabric against her pale skin unsettled me in a way that I hadn't expected it to. "If you'll excuse me," I said rather forcefully. "I'm going to go take a walk." I stood up and quickly made for the door. "Maybe that will help me unwind so I can get a little shut-eye."

"Well, we'll see you later," Hawkeye said with a smug look on his face that could only mean that he was glad I was leaving so he could be alone with Linda.

"Your robe will be on your bed when you get back," Linda said softly, probably sensing that something was wrong. "I really do appreciate your letting me use it."

"It's no problem," I said sharply, then left.

I trudged towards the helicopter pad and walked around it a few times before making my way towards the hills behind the camp. I didn't have anything in mind, any particular destination; I just needed to not be in the tent when Hawkeye and Linda were there.

Something about the two of them laughing and talking about their days in Boston just reminded me that I was on the outside looking in. And something about the way Hawkeye would brush her shoulder with his hand or how she would playfully push him drove me close to my breaking point. Something was happening between the two of them and it seemed everyone knew it. The whispers of the soldiers in line for dinner, the tittering of the nurses in the scrub room, and the less-than-discreet jokes from the other doctors all added to my discomfort when I saw the two of them together.

I shook my head and sighed. It wasn't my business, just like every other nurse that had passed through Hawkeye's side of the tent was not something I asked about.

But Linda wasn't just another nurse.

When I came back from my walk, Linda and Hawkeye were nowhere to be found but my robe was folded neatly on my bed. Reaching to brush it onto the floor, I noticed a small piece of paper in the pocket. I took it out, opened it and read.

_BJ,  
If there's anything you want to talk about, I hope you know that I am always here for you. Anytime, anyday, anywhere.  
-Linda_

I knew she had seen through my discontent, and the gesture warmed my heart. However, I crumpled up the note and threw it on the floor quickly followed by my robe. I slumped onto my bed and drifted off to sleep, one question looming in my head as I dozed off: How could I confide in her when she was part of the problem?


	12. Ch 12: Linda's Past

* * *

"Is BJ always like this?" I asked Hawkeye as we strolled around the compound. "He seems sad a lot. More so than anyone else I've met here so far."

The way BJ had left the tent had worried me. I had only known him for a short time, but after he had confided in me and me in him, I already felt like he was one of my best friends.

"He _is _sad," Hawkeye replied looking off into the distance. "He has so much to live for at home and he's all the way over here. Just like the rest of us."

"Speak for yourself," I replied. "I have nothing back there. Just a lot of empty apartments and bad memories."

"You never found anyone after you left Boston?" Hawkeye asked. "I find it hard to believe that a girl like you could stay single for very long."

"I found someone for a while," I said, quietly. "Mark Hoffner." Even saying his name was hard for me. The words choked me and I had to force them through my lips.

"A doctor?"

I nodded. "A pediatrician." Hawkeye looked at me, a big smile on his face. "I know, I know, I have a weakness for doctors. Something about stethoscopes and rectal thermometers drive me wild." He laughed. "I met him at this clinic where he was guest lecturing. There was something about him. I have always been shy, but I just walked up to him, stuck my hand out, and said, 'My name is Linda.' He smiled this big, dashing smile and said, 'Mine is Mark.'

"We started seeing each other to talk about business, but that quickly became the last thing on our minds. We had everything in common: we liked the same music, ate the same food, it was all so right, you know?"

Hawkeye nodded. "So what happened between you two?"

I sighed. "We were so in love. Every time I was away from him I felt like I was being torn apart. But I was working so hard at the hospital and he was at his clinic and lecturing. But he would always find time to call me from the clinic in between screaming patients and screaming doctors and quickly tell me that he loved me before he had to go back to work."

I smiled despite myself, thinking back on the good days with Mark. "Then, one day, we were walking down in a park by my house and he told me that he was going back to South Dakota. After that, he just dropped down to one knee and proposed, right there in the middle of the park."

"Is that why you left Boston?"

"Yeah. I wanted to be close to Mark." I turned to him. "You can't even imagine how hard it was to leave, Hawk. I loved you and Trapper and the whole staff at that crazy hospital. I didn't even say goodbye to most of them."

"I remember. You took me and Trap aside and just said, 'I'm leaving tonight for South Dakota.' You didn't even tell us when. We had to follow you to the train station."

"I hated you for following me, but I loved you at the same time. I didn't want to have to see your faces as I left, but I loved that you two cared enough to actually tail me."

"And then you were gone, just like that." He sighed and sat on a nearby oil drum.

"If I were to do it all over again, trust me I would have stayed in Boston." I leaned against a telephone pole. "But, I was young and in love."

"It happens to all of us," he replied. "So, what happened after you moved to South Dakota?"

"It was blissful for a while. But it was hard to find time to be together. I started working again at a hospital in Mobridge and he was working at a hospital across town. We rarely got to see each other. Still, he'd leave me little notes on the door or in my lunch box with 'I love you' written on them.

"Then he became distant. He stopped leaving notes, he'd spend even more time at the hospital than he did before, and the whole time I would sit in our apartment and wait for him to come home."

Hawkeye looked worried. "I guess your fairy tale was not as 'Happily Ever After' as you hoped it would be."

"Not quite," I said. "Especially when I found out that he was cheating on me."

"Oh no," Hawkeye replied quietly.

"Yup. Apparently, Mark wasn't the only one in the relationship with an attraction to doctors."

"How did you find out?"

"I was making a quick stop at home because I had forgotten my ID card for the hospital. When I was rustling in my purse for my keys, I looked up and saw a woman slip something under the door, turn, and walk away without seeing me. I rushed over, opened the letter and read. It was a thank you note for a lovely evening in a remote room in their hospital and it was signed, 'With all my heart, Maureen.'"

"Oh, Linda..." Hawkeye said, putting his hand on mine. "That's got to be rough."

Tears began to well up in my eyes. "I just asked him that night and he told me everything. She was a doctor at his hospital and he had been seeing her for months behind my back. All I could do was pack what I could and catch the next train back to Boston.

"I got another apartment and tried to settle down, but too many things about that place reminded me of what I lost. So I packed up again and moved to California. But no amount of moving could wipe my mind clear of all I had been through. So, I cut all my ties and enlisted in the army.

"I decided that the army would cleanse me of my former life, make me another face in the crowd, another person wearing the same clothes as everyone else. I guess I needed the anonymity, but that all went out the door when I saw you here."

"And is that good or bad?" he asked, a sly smile on his face.

I leaned in close to him. "It's very good."

In the distance, a jeep honked.


	13. Ch 13: The Players Assemble

_

* * *

Damn jeep, I thought to myself. I was so close to Linda that I could smell her sweet breath on my face. A little bit closer and I could have finally felt those lips against mine._

"Who is that?" she asked me, gesturing to the man in the jeep. He was a stocky man with tousled black hair and moustache and a kind face.

"That's Sydney Freedman," I replied, getting up off the drum. "He's a psychiatrist who likes to drop in now and again and make sure we're still crazy."

The jeep slowed to a stop right in front of Linda and me. Sydney cut the engine and slowly climbed out.

"How are you doing there, Hawkeye?" Sydney asked. "Read any good papers lately?"

"Only the ones in the latrine," I replied, smiling. "Sydney, this is my good friend Linda Florence. Linda, this is Sydney."

Linda extended her hand. "It's good to meet you, Sydney," she said warmly.

"The pleasure is all mine," Sydney replied in his smooth voice that could calm a crowd and incite a riot at the same time.

"Well, shall we get the game started?" I asked, beginning to walk over to the swamp.

"Let me just run back to my tent and grab my money," Linda said, starting off in the opposite direction. "You boys go ahead without me."

"We'll meet you in there, then," I replied. She waved and walked back to her tent. I followed her with my eyes until she passed around a tent and out of my sight.

Sydney just laughed. "So, how long have you been pursuing this one?"

"She's only been here a day, but she's already high on my list of favorite people ever," I replied.

"That fast, huh?" he asked.

I glared at him. "Don't look at me like that, Sydney," I said. "I knew her in my past life, the one where I was young and carefree in the states. But now she's here and it seems like a little sunlight has just pierced the cloud-cover over my heart."

"That's very poetic," Sydney said, starting to walk slowly towards the swamp. "Have you ever thought of giving up life as a doctor and becoming a professional romantic?"

"The thought had crossed my mind," I replied, walking with him. "There's just something about her, Sydney," I said. "She makes me want to tear myself down completely and build myself up again."

"Well, why don't you?" he asked, stopping outside of the swamp. "Sometimes all of us need a little re-build. You might as well do it now when you don't have eighty other things to do at the same time."

I laughed. "Maybe I should play poker before-"

"Before what?" Linda came from behind a cluster of tents clutching a handful of money.

"Before I try practicing my psychiatry on him," Sydney said. "So you're playing with the guys tonight, Linda?"

"I hear you guys are good, so I only brought money that I have no problem losing."

"That makestwo of us," repliedKlinger, appearing from behind another tentwearing a tight red evening gown and a white fox-fur stole. Radar soon followed.

"Hawkeye," Radar said quietly, tapping me on the shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Major Burns wanted me to tell you that he would take your whole shift as long as you promise not to stick the pages of his bible together with bubble gum like you did last time."

Linda laughed. "You really do know how to party."

"Speaking of party, let's get this one started." I turned to Radar. "I accept Frank's offer. I will not use bubble gum. It'll be surgical tape this time."

The whole group laughed as we threw open the doors of the swamp and hurried in, eager to get started.


	14. Ch 14: The Game

-------------------------------------------------------

I awoke to voices growing louder as they headed towards the swamp. I looked at the clock and realized that it was almost time to being the game. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I quickly sat up and yawned just as Hawkeye entered the tent.

"Someone is excited for the game," he said, laughing as he flounced through the door.

"I can hardly contain my enthusiasm," I replied, sure that everyone was noting the drowsiness in my voice. Somehow, my nap managed to make me more tired than I was before.

"Well, brace yourself," Linda said. "We have a great group assembled."

Hawkeye set up the table while I added the fixings for another batch of gin.

"Who wants one?" I asked. Hands shot up around me and I realized that I had to get out the extra set of glasses.

"Just a tiny one for me," Linda said. "I have duty later."

"You got it," I replied, pouring her half a glass.

"Well," Hawkeye said, rubbing his hands together and staring at the table. "Are you all ready to lose spectacularly to the king of all things poker?"

"And that would be...?" Linda asked sarcastically.

"Of course the regal looking man standing gallantly before you, waiting to aid you in lightening your purse."

"Not only is he the king of poker, but lord of modesty as well," she answered, taking a seat at the table. Radar, Klinger and Sydney soon followed.

"He may be a tad overzealous but he's a damn good poker player," I said, handing her a glass. "You'd better be careful."

"I am and you should," Hawkeye replied, grabbing for his glass. "Especially you, Linda."

"Why me?"

Klinger took it upon himself to begin dealing cards, starting with five card draw.

"Because when it comes to playing poker with me, women are no match."

"No match for what?" Linda said, taking her cards off the table.

"For me," he said, matter-of-factly.

I laughed. "Easy, Hawk or you may just get a fist full of femme in your face."

"If only," he said, batting his eyes towards Linda.

"It'll be more like your pride on a skillet," Sydney said, throwing a blue chip into the pot.

"That will never happen, Sydney, because I am the master of reading women. No one has been or no one will be better at understanding women than me."

"Oh really," Linda asked, eyebrows rising in question. She turned to me and I knew exactly what she was thinking: If he is so good at reading people how come he has no idea that Linda has been in love with him for so long?

"Absolutely. I can read their thoughts before they even know they're thinking them.

"Well, what am I thinking now?" She leaned her elbow on the table and stared Hawkeye down.

"You're thinking about how much you're gonna miss your money," he said without missing a beat.

"Not quite," she replied, picking up her cards. "I was thinking about how much you'll miss yours."

She stole a look at me and winked. I smiled back and picked up my cards. And it began, the poker game, one of many, that never seemed to end. The cards flashed by between bouts of gossip and laughter. The hands weren't significant and the money didn't matter, only the company. Our poker games were a reminder of better times, of simplicity, where a wrong decision would cost you a few dollars rather than a life. We drank gin, lost most of our money, and talked about anything but the war.

"So, tell us about yourself, Linda," Sydney said, watching me toss out his cards as I dealt. All eyes snapped to Linda and she giggled at the sudden attention.

"Well, looks like I'm on," she said. I smiled and turned to Hawkeye whose tongue was practically drooping out of his gaping mouth. "There's very little to tell, believe me," Linda continued. "I don't have the same psychological problems as the rest of the camp."

"…yet," I added. Sydney nodded as he picked up his cards.

"This place may be the home of every type of neuroses imaginable, but it is certainly the place to go when you need to put a little life back in your life."

"That's what our patients say too," Klinger said, picking up his cards. He winced. "Why is it every time BJ deals I get hands that make me want to cry?"

"I have no problem with your dealing, BJ," Linda said. "I'd let you take a gander at my hand, but you might faint."

"She's gotta be bluffing," Radar said, staring intensely at his cards.

"Then why do I detect that worry in your voice?" she said sweetly.

"How's this for worried?" Hawkeye said as he threw in a blue chip. "I'll open for ten."

"I sneer at your ten and raise it to twenty," Linda replied, smiling smugly.

"I cower at your twenty and fold," Klinger said throwing his cards down and jumped up out of his chair.

"I will commit suicide and call the twenty," Sydney said.

"I'm in too," Radar replied.

"And I fold, but with dignity," I replied, throwing my cards down.

"Before the real betting starts," Klinger said from the still, "Does anyone want another drink?"

"I'd like one," I replied. "Linda?"

"No thanks, I have to keep my wits about me."

"Here's to your wits," Hawkeye said, still intense about the game. "Give me one card."

I set down one in front of him. "Linda?"

"What you dealt to me before was just fine, BJ," she chimed, obviously excited about her cards.

"Give me two," Sydney said.

"One for me," Radar said.

"I'll bet fifty," Hawkeye barked.

"Fifty?" Linda replied, looking at her cards again. "I dunno, Hawk. Are you willing to lose all that money to me? A mere woman?"

"Come on, do you call or not?" he replied, noticeably antsy.

"What, no more reading my mind?" she said, laughing.

"Come on, what'll it be?"

"I don't think I'll call," she said, looking at me and winking. "I think I'll raise it to seventy-five."

"Too rich for me," Sydney said.

"Yeah, I think I'd like to keep my money," Radar said, and set his cards down.

"What do you say, Hawk?" I asked.

His eyes darted from one place to the other. He looked intently at his cards, then to Linda, then to his cards, then the pile of chips on the table, then to his own pile, then to his cards again. You could almost hear the wheels in his head turning as he tried to size her up. But she just sat there, hands folded delicately above her hand and smiling warmly at Hawkeye.

"You'd better have a royal flush," Hawkeye said, and threw his cards down.

"The pot goes to you, Linda," I said. A satisfied smile spread across her face as she reached across the table and scooped her winnings towards her.

"So what did you have?" Radar asked.

"Here, let BJ tell you," she said, and gave the cards to me. I looked over them and could hardly believe my eyes.

"You didn't have anything!" I yelled.

Hawkeye looked defeated. "You've got to be kidding me."

"He's not." Linda said and turned to him. "I'm so sorry, Hawkeye. I didn't want to do it, but I had to go for it. Just to see if I could bluff out the big boys."

"I'm not upset, Linda. I'm damn impressed," he replied.

"So am I," Klinger said coming from behind her. "You never even flinched."

"Well, it's like my old drama teacher used to say, 'If you believe it, they'll believe it.' I just figured if I believed I had a great hand then you guys would."

"Well, we certainly believed it," Sydney said, awed by her performance.

"Thank you," she said jovially. "But now that you know my little secret, I guess I'll tuck in for the night. Can you cash me out, BJ?"

Sounds of objections came from the mouths of everyone in the room: "Come on, you can't go." "We've only just begun." "Stay for a little longer." "Have another drink."

"Sorry boys, but I have to take this money home, put it in a safe place, and then go to sleep. All this excitement has burned me out."

I took her chips and gave her all her money. "You've got about two-hundred and fifty dollars there, Linda," I said, handing her the cash.

"Not too shabby for only starting with sixty-five," she said, slipping her money into her jacket pocket.

"Not too shabby at all," I replied.

She stood up and moved towards the door. "Goodnight, boys. See you tomorrow."

"Goodnight Linda," we all said.

She smiled and left the room.

The tent was silent for a moment while we all gaped in wonder at each other. Then, suddenly, we all erupted into a peal of laughter.

"She totally took me!" Klinger choked out through breaks in his raucous chortling.

"Me too!" Radar said. "I had a pair of nines the whole time. I could have beaten her."

"What a poker face," Sydney said.

We all calmed down a bit and Klinger shuffled the deck.

"Well, I guess my comment backfired on me," Hawkeye said after a bit, noticeably embarrassed.

"It backfired on you then it hit you over the head with a frying pan," Sydney replied.

Suddenly, Radar's head jerked up and he looked towards the top of the tent.

"Uh oh," he murmured.

"Speaking of backfiring," I sighed. Klinger dropped the cards and we all got up from the table. Slowly, the sounds of helicopters began to float through the midnight air. The noise got louder and louder as the commotion in the compound also increased. One by one, we filed out of the tent and looked to the sky.

"Looks like the game is over," Sydney said. "Same time next week?"

"We'd better wait and see," Hawkeye replied. "This deluge may not be over by then."


	15. Ch 15: That Woman

"This deluge may not be over by then," I said, sighing at the sight and sounds of triage. With a weary heart, I ran towards the jeeps rushing into the compound.

This was not a rare occurrence; our poker games interrupted by the war. It almost seemed like just when we were forgetting about it, the destruction would make itself known to us again, worse and worse until we broke.

I looked across the compound and saw Linda running up to the ambulances. The expectation was that, by now, she would have a glazed look on her face, glassy eyes and the disposition of a kewpie doll. But there she was, running across the camp, throwing a jacket on as she ran, looking just as alert and alive as when she arrived.

I was impressed.

I was also worried.

Anyone who took that long to let it in, who blocked it out like that, had more of a chance of severely cracking.

But, I couldn't think about it. I was fully in doctor mode and triage was number one on my mind.

"Linda!" I called. She grabbed a clipboard from another nurse and ran to my side.

"Yeah, Hawk?" she asked, pencil at the ready.

"This guy has a bad chest and his belly isn't much better. He's going in first and I've got dibs."

"Blood?"

"Give him twenty units to start and then we'll pump in more when he's ready for it."

"Lieutenant," I heard a voice behind us.

"Yes father?" Linda answered, never taking her eyes off the soldier in front of her.

"I just wanted to thank you again for your generous donation," he said.

"Like I said, it's no problem, Father," she replied.

"What donation?" I asked.

"Lieutenant Florence just gave me, out of the absolute goodness of her heart as well as out of the clear, blue sky, about two-hundred and fifty dollars," Father Mulcahy answered. Someone called his name from behind us. "Bless you my child," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder before scurrying away.

"So, your poker winnings went towards the Father?" I asked, smiling while tying off the soldier's bandages.

"It will be getting cold soon," she said. "I thought that the kids at Sister Theresa's could use some blankets and a hot meal."

She wrote down the status of the patient and ran off to Colonel Potter's side.

I finished triage and ran into the scrub room.

BJ was just finishing scrubbing when I barged in.

"I have faith in humanity again," I announced as I rushed to the sink.

"I doubt it was from that group out there," BJ replied. "I saw a lot of hand-to-hand combat wounds. It's gonna be an interesting night."

"I agree," I said. "But, despite that, I believe that there is a little silver lining on the clouds rolling overhead."

"Pray tell, what is it?"

"Linda, after thoroughly cleaning us at the poker table tonight, gave all of her winnings to Father Mulcahy to give to the kids at Sister Theresa's." I stopped and assessed BJ's response.

All he managed to say was, "Wow."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "That woman..."

That was all I had to say. He understood what I meant. How I was beginning to feel about Linda was a way I hadn't felt in a long time. It felt fantastic.


	16. Ch 16: Point of View

And that's how it was. For weeks and weeks we would have periods of deluge, of soldiers lining the floors of the camp. We would treat them, bury them, or ship them off, and then we would have a period of boredom. All throughout, I became closer and closer to Linda. Something about her made me want to be around her all the time. She was like a light in a dark room and everyone gravitated to her. People's steps were lighter when she would walk into the mess tent or post op. Smiles were contagious when she beamed at you. Radar, the Colonel, BJ, Klinger, even Frank all felt her intoxicating positive attitude and there was not a social event at the 4077th that she was not invited to.

But, through the veil of happiness, you could tell that she was having a hard time. The nurses would shrug her off when she came to sit with the officers. Margaret had made her one of the heads of the nursing staff but when she gave orders, the nurses would throw glances at her that would freeze your heart. She couldn't even walk across the compound without getting the cold shoulder from almost everyone else.

One night, in the officer's club, I opened the door for her and she was hailed by Colonel Potter and Radar across the room. As she passed over the threshold, every nurse in the room stood up and left. Her smile never faltered and she just replied in a jolly tone, "More room to Charleston."

Through the hard times, I began to love her. She was never completely out of my mind. I would ask nurses to swap shifts so she would be working with me. I would pass by her tent five or six times and, when she finally saw me, I would appear nonchalant and tell her I was coming from the showers, knowing full well that she saw through my façade. I didn't care, though, just so I could be with her. I wanted to hold her, to feel her body close to mine, but I didn't know how to ask without sounding like I was propositioning her. I didn't want it to be tawdry; I wanted it to be special. I just had to figure out how...

* * *

I was beginning to adjust to life at the 4077th. Above all, I had figured out who my friends were. I could walk into the Swamp at any time of the day and BJ or Hawkeye would jump up and offer me a drink. Even Frank didn't mind too much when I would saunter in and sit on Hawkeye's bunk, asking the boys how their day was going.

But, when I walked into my own tent, Sherry would shoot me a piercing glance and turn her back on me. All the nurses hated me, and I couldn't figure out why. I did my work on time, I finished my rounds in a responsible way, I never once said anything awful about them to their faces or even behind their backs, but I would still walk into the women's shower and would only be greeted with hard stares and whispers.

One day, fed up with the drama, I cornered Sherry and some of the other nurses and asked them why they hated me so much.

"You messed up the order of things," Sherry had said. "You waltzed into this camp like you were the queen and got all the respect we all had to earn. You're buddy-buddy with the captains, you're every soldier's best friend, you have Radar in your pocket, you always manage to get shifts with your bud, Hawkeye and the officers will trip over themselves to please you."

"It's not like I asked any special favors," I replied, tears threatening to give me away. "I just happened to know Hawkeye from Boston-"

"It doesn't matter," Sherry had interrupted. "The truth is that you don't belong with the rest of us."

So that was it: I wasn't part of the club. I finally had the friends that I had always wanted but it was overshadowed with a feeling of disgust from the other nurses that hung over like a cloud. I wasn't part of their group and they let me know it as often as they could.

Even though she had been hard on me at first, Major Houlihan took pity on me and comforted me behind the mess tent later that day.

"I know how you feel, Lieutenant," she had said, awkwardly placing her hand on my shoulder. "They don't like to include me either."

"At least they respect you, Major," I had replied, tears in my eyes. "They don't even listen to me when I suggest things. I try, I try so hard, but they hate me."

"Give it time, Linda," she had said simply, and she patted my back and left.

It didn't seem like time would change anything. The scene they had made at the Officer's Club brought tears to my eyes, but I managed to smile and make a joke out of it. I had been doing that a lot lately, smiling through my loneliness. Even Hawkeye's desperate attempts at cheering me up didn't seem to help. The only solace I got was sitting alone in my tent and reading. Sherry had taken up sleeping in the main nurse's tent and I would have the place alone to read, to write, or to gather my thoughts.

I smiled, I smiled through my sadness, but I didn't know how much longer I could smile...

* * *

Linda was having a rough time trying to figure out the way life worked at the 4077th. She was constantly the topic of conversation and the nurses would barely lower their voices when they would talk about her in post-op or in the mess tent. Still, she was able to smile through her pain, and that alone amazed me about her. She would make jokes when people hurt her feelings. When the nurses would shrug off her attempts to be friends, she would just laugh and move on. She would be at every social gathering and have her hand in every activity, but still they didn't let her in. The nurses at the 4077th were the best in the business, but theirs was not an easy club to get into. If you weren't in, you were never in.

Hawkeye and I tried everything we could to help her out but, slowly, she slipped away, further and further into herself. She retreated from the rest of us and whenever she wasn't dazzling the officers at parties, she was taking extra shifts in post-op or reading in her tent.

I hated seeing Hawkeye trying to seduce her, especially during that time. Despite her façade, she was more fragile than usual. I saw how she would look at him when he would chase another nurse. Granted, his antics had slown down quite a bit since she had gotten there, but that's not saying a lot when you think of how much of a ladies-man Hawkeye was. He would strike out with Linda and go try his hand at another nurse and this broke her heart. I wanted to be her friend and help her, but I didn't know how. I decided, one day, that I would try to get to her the same way I did before...


	17. Ch 17: The Tent

"Linda?" I said, knocking on the door of her tent.

"BJ?" I heard a muffled voice ask from within. Putting my ear to the door, I heard a ruffle of blankets and heavy footsteps as the bolt slid and the door opened.

Linda stood there; pajamas ruffled, hair askew, and sleep still in her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't realize you were asleep."

"It's ok," she said, smiling. "What's going on?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure." She pushed the door aside and walked into her tent. I closed the door behind me and looked around, realizing that I had never been in her tent before. The extra bed that I assumed was the one Sherry wasn't using anymore, was heaped with folded laundry, papers, and other assorted knick-knacks. Linda's side table was covered in books and more papers, leaving little room for the small lamp perched precariously on the edge. The walls had flair to it, but it wasn't very personal. Instead of pictures there was a Japanese fan, unfolded to show an intricate dragon stitched into it, some clippings from Stars and Stripes about the 4077th, and a few dried flowers from the fields around the camp. The only identifying part of the tent was the extra pair of dog tags hanging from a hook. If those weren't there, this could have been mistaken as almost anyone's.

"Sorry the place is a mess," she said, snapping me out of my observations. "I haven't had a lot of time to clean." She laughed. "Actually, I've had nothing but time. I'm just not very motivated lately, I guess."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," I said, trying to remember exactly what I had rehearsed in my tent. I didn't want it to come out too harsh or condescending, but I wanted to get my point across.

"How I've been a crazy person lately?" she asked, throwing my whole plan off. I laughed.

"Not crazy, just lonely."

"Is it that obvious?" She leaned against her bed table, the lamp wobbling dangerously.

"Not to the untrained eye," I replied. "But I've been watching you-"

"You have?" she asked. I was a little taken aback at the urgency of those words, the hunger she had when she said them.

"-and you look like you could use more than just a few kind words and a shot of gin," I finished.

"I appreciate it, BJ, but I don't think I can do this anymore. I don't fit in anywhere. The other nurses hate me, I try my best but I can't seem to do anything right, I'm in love with a doctor whose only goal in life is to get as many conquests as he can in before he's too old, my friends are either too busy or married or uptight to care-"

"Married?" I asked, catching the one word that didn't make sense.

"What?"

"Did you say your friends were too married to care?"

She seemed confused. "Did I?"

I shook it away. "Look, let me help you."

"How?"

I smiled a sly grin. "Get dressed."

She raided an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Just get dressed."

She paused for a moment, no doubt assessing my offer and trying to see an ulterior motive in it.

Finally, she caved. "Close your eyes and turn around."

I turned towards the door, excitement building up inside me. I listened to her change before it occurred to me that I was straining to hear her undress. I was perplexed and then shocked at my own behavior. I tried to block it out, to think about something else, but all that filled my ears was the sounds of her clothes rustling.

_Stop it_, I thought to myself. But before I could scold myself more, I heard her say, "Ok, I'm ready."

Turning around and looking at her transformation, I couldn't help but hold my breath. She had, somehow, converted from a sleepy girl in her pajamas to a woman. Her fatigues were clean and pressed, a sharp contrast to her bedraggled pajamas, and her hair was combed and pulled back into a ponytail.

"What?" she asked, noticing my stare.

"Sorry," I said. "You...clean up really well."

I immediately winced at my own words but she, thankfully, laughed. "I try to look good for you, dear," she replied, giving me a playful push. "So, where are we off to?"

I took her hand and led her from the tent and to a jeep. She, probably guessing where we were off to, got into the passenger seat without question and I started the jeep and gunned it. We rode in silence, her with a little smile on her face. She knew what was coming, where the road was leading and I accelerated faster, trying to get to our destination.


	18. Ch 18: Broken Down

He turned into the familiar glade and, as before, the brilliant green of the trees exploded around us. The jeep stopped and I looked up towards the sky.

"Is this where you take all the girls," BJ?" I asked, ribbing him.

"Nah, just the special ones," he replied. His words seemed to tie a knot in my stomach and I reveled in the tension. It was a nice change from the utter lack of emotion I had been feeling prior to the trip. "I just wanted to wake you up a little," he continued. "It's easy to slip into the darkness of this place and, without a little light, it will consume you." He stopped talking for a moment and listened to the whistling of the wind through the leaves. The birds, the wind, and the sound of my heart, beating like a tympani drum, all seemed to come together in a symphony as he turned his head to look into my eyes.

"What is it about you?" I found myself asking.

"What do you mean?"

"How can you see through me and know exactly how to make me feel so much better without even batting an eyelash?" I wasn't even thinking about what I was saying. My mind had completely shut off and words were spilling out of my mouth, seemingly coming from a well much deeper in my body. "Somehow, you can just look at me and know what I'm thinking. Can you read my thoughts? Can you open up my mind and peek inside?"

He shrugged. "I'm just a normal guy trying to help out a friend."

I shuddered. Right then, in that moment, I hated the way he had said "friend." It was stressed unnecessarily, unnaturally and he spit it out in an almost spiteful way. I found myself disgusted at him. I wanted to ask him, "Is that all I am, just a friend?" But my mind was back in control and I was able to put a lid on that well deep inside.

"Thanks," was all I was able to squeak out. We sat for a while in silence, him staring into the distance and me stewing in anger. I wanted to tell him why I was so upset, but I couldn't really place it myself. I knew we were friends. I had told many people who whispered about me and BJ that he was a friend and nothing more but that word was tearing me up inside.

"I think we should go," BJ said, finally breaking the silence.

I nodded, not able to answer him. He started the jeep and we rode back to the camp in silence. However, it wasn't the same anticipatory silence like it had been on the way there but a palpable block between us, keeping us from communicating. I knew I was being unreasonable but I couldn't help it.

We stopped on the road into camp and he turned to me. "Did I say something wrong?" I looked at him and realized how awful I was being. He went out of his way to help me, to help his friend feel like a person again. I put my hand on his knee. "No. Thank you for being a good friend, BJ."

We looked out over the hustle and bustle of the camp and I noticed how small it seemed to be from this angle. The tents seemed to be bursting with people and they filled onto the compound in a mass exodus.

I looked again and noticed the abnormal amount of people running about. A sense of dread settled in the pit of my stomach and I looked at BJ, pleadingly.

"Tell me it isn't so," I begged. He shook his head.

"I wish I could." Without another word, we sped towards the camp, the sound of the tires on the gravel followed suit by the even, staccato sound of helicopter blades punching the air. "I'll drive up to the helicopter pad and we'll get the kids on the choppers," BJ yelled over the commotion. He veered away from the compound and fled up the dirt ramp to the helipad. The dust flew from the sky like rain and I had to shield my eyes from the torrent as the helicopters touched down, filled with wounded soldiers.

BJ got out of the car and to the helicopters first. He threw off the clear shield, barely noticing as it crashed to the ground. I raced over to him and waited for instructions.

"It's a bad chest wound," he yelled over the cacophony. "The one on the other side can wait but this one can't. Let's take him down and give him to Hawkeye."

BJ and I lifted the soldier up and put him on the back of the jeep. I climbed in after the wounded man and threw my body over him to shield his wounds from the dust. BJ jumped in and floored it to the compound, pausing only long enough to yell his plans to the ambulance on its way up the ramp. I held on to the poor kid with all my might, smearing his blood all over my uniform, although at the time that hardly mattered. I just kept whispering, "It will be ok," to him, hoping that he could hear me.

When we reached the compound, I jumped out of the jeep and yelled for a stretcher. BJ ran up to the wounded soldier and examined him more closely. "Give him whole blood. Pump it into him as fast as you can and get him prepped."

"Stretcher!" I screamed again. Finally two men and a stretcher rounded the corner and picked up the soldier. I repeated BJ's orders and ran to Colonel Potter, who was calling for a nurse.

"What is it, Colonel?" I asked, kneeling beside him.

"These bandages are completely soaked through," he said. "Someone has to dress these wounds and get some blood into him or he's gone." He pulled the bandage off the soldier's neck and blood squirted out over the both of us.

Without hesitation, I plugged up the hole in his artery with my fingers, barely registering that my un-sterilized hands could cause an infection later on.

Colonel Potter was already calling for men to pick up the soldier when the man began to move. _He isn't unconscious!_ I thought. He began to thrash back and forth, making my hands slip and causing his life's blood to be poured over the unyielding dirt of the compound. He began to whimper, "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die."

"Shh," I said. "It's going to be ok. You'll be fine."

His voice became weaker and he began to speak in fragments. "I got shot..." A gurgling sound came out of his mouth. "So much blood..." He gasped and looked me straight in the eyes. "I don't want to die."

I knelt beside him and stroked his hair, hoping that would calm him. I plugged up his neck once more and, with my other hand, looked at his dog-tags. His name was Dennis Martin.

"It's going to be ok, Dennis. I won't let you die, I promise."

I began humming a lullaby that my mother used to sing to me when I was a child. The pandemonium around me went on as I waited for someone to help that poor kid who was bleeding all over the ground.

Finally, two corpsmen ran to my aid. They lifted him up and ran into pre-op as I walked along side him, one hand on his neck and the other hand clutching his cold fingers.

The doors to pre-op banged shut and the corpsmen dropped Dennis onto a table and ran back out of the room. The other nurses scuttled around, preparing him for surgery as if I wasn't there.

He began to moan, long, painful wails that broke my heart.

"Someone give this guy some morphine!" I screamed over the chaos of pre-op.

The nurses rolled their eyes at me, chalking it up to my dramatic nature, my need to be in the spotlight that I was carrying on so. I yelled again and Nurse Kellye, the only nurse that could stand to be seen in the same room as me, seemed to believe that I wasn't practicing for the school play and ran up with a syringe and shot some morphine into his arm. He whimpered pitifully, his mouth moving as if he was trying to speak. Whether it was too noisy or whether he wasn't speaking at all, I couldn't make out what he was trying to say.

I felt a hot sting beginning burning my eyes. I shook my head to try and clear them, but my tears trailed down my face despite my efforts to wipe them away.

"Will someone help me, for God's sake?" I cried.

"He's going into the O.R. right now," Major Houlihan said. "You can let go now."

"No I can't," I said. "He's got a neck wound and if I move my hands he's dead."

"But you're not sterile."

"To hell with being sterile!" I screamed, causing some of the corpsmen and nurses to turn and look at me. I took a deep breath and said more calmly, "Just get me a mask and once he's stitched up we'll deal with my being sterile or not."

I followed him into the O.R and he was set in front of BJ.

"Linda?"

"He's got a laceration in his jugular, BJ," I said. "If I move we're going to be mopping him up for a week." Nurse Bigelow came up behind me and threw a mask over my face. "Thanks."

"I find this highly irregular, Lieutenant," Major Burns said, pushing BJ away from the private's neck.

"Then take a laxative and get away from here," I said, shoving him out of BJ's way with my other arm.

"It's against regulations to push a superior officer!" he screamed, but I didn't give him an answer.

"I've got this covered, Linda," BJ said in his cool, calm voice. "Let me get some gloves over here," he yelled to another nurse in the corner of the room. She scurried to the shelves and grabbed some gloves, taking her time to come back with the gloves and an instrument tray. "It'll all be ok, Linda," BJ said. "Just keep your finger on that artery and we'll have him stitched up in no time." He said it in such a manner that his voice irritated the hell out of me. His smooth, silky tone sent shivers down my spine. I was having the same reaction to his tone now that I had in the jeep before when he had spit out "friend" at me. It wasn't his words but his attitude that made hate him again.

"How can you be so calm when this man's life is pouring out of him?" I asked.

"It comes from seeing this everyday when I go to work," he said, slowly and evenly.

"That doesn't matter," I said, my voice rising in pitch. "That doesn't make him any less of a person just because he bleeds the same color as everyone else. He still bleeds."

"It's ok, Linda, he'll be fine," BJ replied, worry creeping into his voice.

"But why are you taking your sweet time to save his life?" I shrieked. Heads began to turn and look at me. "You're treating him like he was just a car on an assembly line." My voice climbed to a shrill yell. Everyone in the room had their attention on me and I knew I should have stopped, but it was too late. "Add the wheel, tighten a screw, is that all you do? This is a person who is hurt and you can't shake a damn leg?" My whole body trembled with rage. I wanted someone to say something, but everyone just stared at me. "Someone say something!" I screamed.

"Kellye, can you help me here?" BJ asked quietly. Kellye gently pushed me aside with one hand and replaced my fingers with hers on the soldier's neck.

I felt hands on my shoulders and, before I knew it, I was being guided out of the O.R. It was only until I sat down on the bench outside of the O.R door that I realized it was Hawkeye that had taken me out of the room. I took one look at his face and all the weeks of loneliness and abandonment I had felt combined with the horror I had just seen burst out of my body. I buried my head in his chest, and cried like I had never cried before.


	19. Ch 19: A Tear and a Kiss

It had finally happened. Linda, like so many before her, had come to the harsh realization that life existed behind the glassy eyes and red innards of the patients we worked on. Finding this out the hard way was almost a rite of passage to everyone who passed under the "4077th: Best Care Anywhere" sign that decked the threshold to the camp we called home.

"His name is Dennis Martin," she said softly between sobs.

"Is it?" I asked softly.

"I read it on his dog tag." She looked towards the door. "He was so scared, Hawkeye."

"They all are, Linda," I said. "They are all too young to be here, too young to be involved in something like this, and they're all scared."

She turned to me, her tears trailing silvery streams down her cheeks. "Why didn't I get it before?" Her head fell lightly on my shoulder. "Why couldn't I see?"

"It's easy to tune it all out and forget," I said. "Actually, it's advisable to tune it out and forget." I turned her towards me and wiped the tears from her face gently. "But, once in a while, something gets through. It's different for all of us, but slowly the wall we build around ourselves falls and we are left vulnerable to the cold, hard reality."

"And what's that?" she asked.

"That this is a war, and wars are never heroic or romantic. They are chaotic and devastating. Not just to the land or the governments, but the people, the lives that are destroyed and the lives that are lost." I pulled my arms around her and tightened my grip. "Is this too much for you?"

"Of course," she replied with a sad chuckle. "But it's good to know that I'm not the only one who has broken down."

"Are you kidding, I break down every hour on the hour," I said, laughing. "I break down more than the peace talks."

She pulled away from me, but not completely out of my embrace. "Thanks, Hawk."

I gave her a kiss on the head. "Don't mention it."

She looked at me a little surprised, no doubt taken aback by the kiss. I didn't even think about it until she was staring into my eyes, trying to find an answer.

Suddenly, the doors to O.R opened and she broke our gaze. Tearing her eyes away like that felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. I inhaled sharply and looked to Klinger, now coming through the doors carrying BJ's patient, Dennis Martin.

Linda glanced up as BJ walked through the doors after the litter.

"Is he gonna be ok?" she asked quietly. He pulled his mask off and smiled kindly.

"Because of your magic fingers and a few stitches he'll make it," he said.

She jumped up from the bench and hugged him. She stood there for a moment, her back to me, clinging to BJ. He looked at me questioningly, but I just shook my head.

"I'm so sorry, BJ," I heard her whisper. He glanced back at me.

"What for?"

"For letting it get to me."

He let her go and gave her a piercing stare. "Now you listen to me, Linda," he said, his fierce tone with his soft hand on her face a strange and stirring combination. "You don't have to be a rock every minute of every day. You are a human being with emotions and you are entitled to express them. If you are angry show people that you're angry. Throw punches, break things, but never apologize for feeling."

Linda let out a little sob and put her head on his shoulder. "Thank you, BJ. Thank you for everything."

She turned back to me, wiping the tears from her eyes. "And thank you, Hawkeye." She put her hands on the sides of my face and kissed my forehead.

Despite myself, my mouth widened into a smile.


	20. Ch 20: One Visit Then Another

The colonel gave me a few days off and I spent them in my tent. My mind raced with all that had happened that day and my thoughts swirled around and around until it had almost driven me insane.

_So,_ I thought to myself, _this is what it's like to crack._ I almost felt ashamed at myself, but somehow I knew it was going to happen anyway. I had put up such a wall that it was just begging to be demolished.

And it had. This was the part I had read about in my psychology classes where the patient is the most emotional, the most vulnerable and I sure felt it. Any time my thoughts wandered, I found myself crying. I could think about anything: Hawkeye, BJ, the soldiers on those tables, blood, scalpels, anything and I would break down and cry.

I spent three days in my tent, barely eating the food Radar placed gingerly on my bedside table. I guess the camp was able to get along without me for a few days and I was grateful for the break, but I was wondering what they were going to do with me. Would they send me home? Would they treat me here or in Tokyo? Or, worse, would they ship me to another unit?

After the third day of tears and terror, a light knock on my door brought me out of my stupor. "Come in Radar," I said, not looking forward to seeing his worried face or the tray of food he would try to get me to eat.

But instead of Radar, another face poked through my door.

"I could go back and put on an oversized uniform and glasses if you would prefer," he said casually.

I smiled for the first time in three days. "Come on in, Sydney."

He pushed the door aside and stepped into my tent. "Some quality quarters you've got here, Linda."

"It helps when your roommate doesn't want to be seen with you," I replied. "More room to spread out." I sat up onto my pillows. "But I'm sure you've come to talk to me about that, as well as other things."

"Would you mind if we did talk?"

"I'd love it," I replied, gesturing to a chair by the bed. "You'd be the first person in three days to come in here without acting like I had typhoid."

He sat down and looked at me. It was hard to have him looking at you and not feel like he was analyzing everything, like every crease in your face had a meaning so significant that he had to memorize it. It was discomforting but, at the same time, I liked the attention.

"Tell me about what happened in OR the other day," he said.

"Didn't BJ or Hawkeye tell you?" I asked, feeling the wounds open up again and feeling the tears in my eyes.

"Yeah, but they're lousy story tellers. Besides, I'd like to hear your side of it."

I sighed. "I was trying to keep this young kid named Dennis Martin from dying and I seemed to be the only one who cared about it. Everyone else was numb."

"Like the way you used to be?" he asked kindly. "I seemed to remember a young nurse at a poker game gushing about how much she loved to be a nurse."

"I guess," I said. "I used to look at a kid lying on the table and just see the cuts, the bruises, or the wounds. But when I looked down and saw his face, heard him whimper like that, said his name, I just couldn't stand it."

"You know, Linda, I see this a lot in these units. In fact, I see a lot of this with all doctors and nurses. There's a point where you find the reality and you can't just block it out anymore."

"Do they ever get better?" I asked, worried for the first time that my career may be in jeopardy.

He smiled and put his hand reassuringly on mine. "Yes. And they are able to go on with their lives with the knowledge that their skills brought that person back from the dead. They know that, instead of just sewing up a wound, they saved a human being."

"How can I get there?" I asked hurriedly. "I can't keep doing this, this crying alone whenever I even think about blood. I'm a nurse and I have to nurse someone or else I'm of no use here."

"All you have to do is give yourself time to readjust to this place."

"Are you kidding?" I asked. "It took me this long to adjust the first time. How can I do it all over again before another batch of wounded comes through?"

"It won't take as long, I promise," he said. "Besides, if the army intelligence is right, you have a few days of quiet before you're down in the trenches again."

"So, how do I do it?"

"You start by getting dressed and meeting me outside in five minutes," he said, getting out of the chair. "We're going for a little stroll."

He walked out of the tent without another word. Before my words of protest could form in my mouth, he was outside. I laughed and shook my head, getting slowly out of my bed and dressing.

_Where are we going to go_? I asked myself. I thought of the times BJ had taken me to the grove to help me through my hard times.

_BJ...he must think I am so weak_, I thought. I didn't want to face him again after what had happened. That day was so full of emotions: hate, anger, sadness, frustration. I couldn't help but think of all he had done for me and how I had repaid him. _I'll make it up to him when I can_, I thought, and that made me feel better.

I walked outside to a cold breeze that I didn't expect. The spring days that I had begun to get used to were slowly drifting away. I had heard about how hard the winters were and made a mental note to accumulate as many layers of clothing as I could before the snows came.

Sydney smiled as I left my tent. "You look better already," he said. He put a hand on my back and began to guide me.

"Sydney, are we going in there?" I asked, pointing towards post-op.

"Yes we are, Linda," he said. "We're going to go see what a great job you've been doing here."

Before I had time to protest, he pushed the door open and walked me inside. My eyes immediately went to BJ and Hawkeye, both of whom looked up and smiled at me.

"How are you doing, Tiger?" Hawkeye asked, hanging a chart back on its hook and walking over to Sydney and me.

"I'm hanging in there," I said quietly. My eyes darted to BJ. He had dropped his gaze back to his patient, but his face was noticeably brighter.

I had to smile at that.

"Is our friend able to talk?" Sydney asked Hawkeye. Hawkeye nodded.

"He's been aquiver with anticipation, Sydney," he said. He smiled and Sydney guided me again to the foot of one of the beds.

I looked down and saw Dennis Martin smiling back at me, a bandage on his neck the only sign that anything was amiss.

"How are you doing, Dennis?" I asked, shocked at how I had jumped from a frightened girl back to a nurse.

"I'm doing great, ma'am," he said with a slight twinge of a southern accent. "I'd jump up and give you a kiss if the doctor hadn't told me I couldn't."

"He's right, you need your rest and to keep your neck stable for a while." I left the feel of Sydney's hand on my back and sat at a chair beside his bed.

"I remember it all," he said suddenly. "I remember being so scared and all that blood was gushin' out of me. Then you were there and you comforted me, made me hopeful that I would live. Well, you saved my life."

"It's all in a day's work," I replied. I looked up at Hawkeye and Sydney and they smiled as they walked towards the door. "So where are you from, Dennis?"


	21. Ch 21: Burning Questions, Burning Kisses

"She's looking a lot better," I said as Hawkeye and Sydney walked towards me.

"She just needed to have a tangible reason to keep on being a nurse," Sydney said. "Seeing that kid alive is a shot in the arm for her. It gives her purpose again."

"Well, I don't know how you did it, Sydney," Hawkeye said, glancing back at Linda, "But you are definitely on my Christmas card list this year."

"Will you guys keep an eye on her?" Sydney asked, checking his watch. "I hate to leave this soon, but I have to get down to a battle fatigue case at the 8063rd. If there's any trouble, call me and I'll swing by on my way back."

"Ok, thanks Sydney," Hawkeye said.

Sydney brushed past us and through the doors. Hawkeye and I glanced at each other for a moment and then walked towards Linda.

She looked up at us when we got there and beamed.

"Dennis here was telling me all about Tennessee, where he grew up," I said. "I've never been there myself, but I hear it's beautiful."

"Oh it is," Dennis said, glowing with the attention. "It's the most fantastic place on this earth. I can't wait until I go back."

"Well, you'd better picture that old Tennessee home," I said, "Because you're going back in a few days."

Linda smiled and looked down at Dennis. His face was wide open in a look of happiness. "I'm, going home?"

"After a few days in Tokyo, you'll be off," Hawkeye said. "Courtesy of us here at the 4077th."

Dennis let the news sink in a little and turned towards Linda. "I can't tell you how grateful I am to you. It's 'cause of you that I'll live to see my ma and pa again."

"You just get some rest," she whispered, and squeezed his hand. She bolted up and ran out the doors into the compound.

"Is she ok?" Dennis asked.

"Let me check on her," I said, and followed Linda's path out the door.

She was standing, looking out over the camp, arms crossed and tears streaming down her face.

"How you doing, Linda?" I asked.

She turned to me and, without a word, clutched me so tight that it knocked the wind out of me.

"I can't tell you how awful I feel, about how I treated you."

"What in the world are you talking about?" I asked.

She sobbed and turned away from me. "When we were in the jeep the other day, and you were doing what you could to make me feel like a person again, I felt myself hating you when you called me your friend."

"Why?"

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her body. "I don't know. But I was so cruel. And then when I questioned your commitment to your patients...I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see me again."

Despite her solemnity, I laughed. "I could never blame you for what you did. Do you have any idea how many times I've yelled at people or called them names or said things I felt awful about later?"

I took my lab coat off and wrapped it around her shoulders, trying to warm her up. "We're not ourselves when we're here. We're people under stress, under pressure, and under fire, literally most times, and we can't help but put up a wall to protect ourselves. That wall is the thing that everyone else sees, it's our façade.

"But when you looked at me with those burning eyes, I knew I was seeing the real you. You were dedicated to helping someone and you wouldn't take no for an answer. A man's life was hanging in the balance and you were brave enough to stand up for him."

There was silence for a moment. I felt her shiver and I ran my hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her, but she shrugged me off. It wasn't a harsh, gesture, but I felt like I had done something wrong. She turned to me and smiled. "Thank you so much for being so kind."

She gave me my lab coat back and kissed me on the cheek. Without a word, she glided towards her tent and was lost in the darkness.

I stood there in shock, my face burning where she had kissed me.

_Snap out of _it, I said to myself, but I couldn't seem to. Different questions rushed through my head. Why did she kiss me? Why did I suddenly feel like my shoes were glued to the floor? Why when I put my lab coat on and felt her warmth, my heart beat faster in my chest then I thought it could?

I shook my head and walked back into post-op.

"Is she doing ok?" I heard someone say through the cloud around my head.

"What?"

"Beej," Hawkeye asked, walking towards me. "Is she ok?"

"Oh, yeah, she'll be fine. I think she just needs a day or so to relax and she'll be as right as rain again."

"Sounds good," Hawkeye said, eyeing me strangely.

"What is it?"

He hesitated. I felt like he was about to say something, something important. But as soon as he opened his mouth, he closed it again. He sighed.

"Nothing," he said, and he dropped into silence.

* * *

There was something about the dazed look on BJ's face when he walked into post-op that stopped me cold. I found myself wondering what he had said to her and, more importantly, what she had said back to make him look like that. He didn't look happy, or sad, or any other simple emotion. It was some kind of strange combination of elation and horror. 

"Are you ok?" I asked him after a long silence.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" he said briskly.

"You just look...I dunno...strange."

"Do I?" he asked, looking over a chart that I recognized as a chart he had looked over about three times in the last fifteen minutes.

"What did you guys talk about out there?"

"Nothing much."

"Why was she upset?"

"No reason."

I pulled the chart out of his hand. "Can I get a real answer from you?"

"What's the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me? What's the matter with you? You're acting like a zombie and I'd like to know why."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He grabbed the chart from me and hung it up. He walked a few feet, stopped and turned back to me. "I'm sorry Hawkeye. The truth is I don't know what's come over me."

"It's ok, Beej. I'll take over for you. Why don't you get some rest?"

"Thanks."


	22. Ch 22: A Notch in his Bedpost

_What were you thinking_? I asked myself as I walked away from him. _Why did you kiss him_? I had told myself it was a friendly thing to do to show my gratitude, but as I was leaning in, I had this tremendous urge to change the trajectory and kiss him on the mouth. I didn't, luckily, but my lips still seemed to smolder with the contact of his skin on mine.

I took a few laps around the compound to collect my thoughts until I finally made my way to my tent.

The last thing I expected when I walked away from BJ was to walk into my tent and be bombarded with another surprise. But when I opened the door, Sherry was standing there, looking at the fan on my wall.

"This really is lovely," she said, pointing to the dragon. "Where did you get it?"

"Why do you care?" I asked bitterly. She shrugged and looked back up at the fan. "Colonel Potter gave it to me to help spice the room up," I said after a bit, still wary of her.

She laughed. "See, Nightingale, _that's_ why you don't fit in with us."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Oh you know," she said meanly. "Colonel Potter gives you a Japanese fan to make your tent pretty and you don't think you're getting special treatment?"

"I'm not getting special treatment, he's my friend."

"Like Hawkeye is your friend, and BJ, and Major Houlihan, and Radar, and Klinger-"

"Yes, Sherry, they're all my friends. They extended a hand where you and your nurse friends slapped it away. I was the new girl, barely able to see straight in this khaki hell and you and your friends made me feel like I was permanently on the outside looking in."

She dropped her gaze. "That's why I came here," she said softly. "I wanted to say that I felt bad for the way I've been treating you."

"Apology accepted," I said coldly. "Now, if you'll excuse me-"

"Come on, Nightingale, listen to me," she pleaded. "I feel bad, but I'm not saying you didn't deserve it. You came into this place with your high and mighty attitude and you made us all feel like you were Cinderella and we were the ugly stepsisters. We were cast aside; our novelty was worn out because there was a new and improved nurse on the prowl. That's how it is around here, Linda. Trust me, I've seen it. The new nurses are the talk of the tent for a while, but when more come, the new ones become the old ones and are thrown to the sidelines."

She came up to me and put a hand on my back. "It'll happen to you too. You'll see. One day there'll be a jeep out there bearing fresh girls and your friends will forget all about you. When that happens, it would be nice to have something to fall back on."

"Sherry," I said through gritted teeth. "I don't know why you're saying these things, but I assure you that my closeness with the people here is not a 'novelty' as you say. I have real friends here that I didn't have to earn through a business transaction. What you're offering me is a group of friends who will only take me when I dump the others. That's not friendship that's an ultimatum, and I won't do it."

She laughed cruelly. "I remember when I was like you. I felt like I was on top of the world. I used to be invited to the swamp on a daily basis to have drinks with _my friends_. One day, Hawkeye took me to a secluded grove and told me he loved me." I jerked my head towards her. "Oh yeah, he did," Sherry replied, seeing my sudden attention. "He told me how he had never felt the same way about anyone before and he wanted me and only me forever. Well, he had me for a time, anyway. I let him take me and it was blissful. It was like I had found my one true love.

"But after that, he barely spoke to me. Then he didn't speak to me at all. Once he had gotten what he came for, he moved on to the next girl. I was nothing but a notch in his bedpost."

"I don't believe you," I said. "Hawkeye would never do something like that."

She brushed aside me and walked to the door. "Go and ask him. I assure you, Nightingale, if you don't believe he'd do something so rotten, you don't know Hawkeye Pierce as well as you'd think. That's why the nurses won't talk to you. They all have been through it and they see it happening all over again. Come talk to us when you're just a name and a date etched onto Hawkeye's bed."

She flung the door open and let it bang on the frame, sending her message home. I sat on my bed in disbelief. I had chalked up the rumors I had heard about Hawkeye as elaborate stories, but Sherry's version of the tale was harsh and, as much as I hated to admit it, credible.

I knew stewing about it would do me no good, so I decided to go talk to him, to straighten everything out, and to hear him say that it was all a farce. I could only hope...


	23. Ch 23: It's Been a Long Day

I marched out of my tent and made a beeline for the Swamp. I could see a light inside and spotted Hawkeye hunched over the still.

With determination, I threw the door aside, stepped in and asked, "I hope you can explain yourself to me."

He put his head up, and I immediately felt a flush of embarrassment hit my face. BJ looked at me with surprise. "I thought I was getting a nightcap."

"Oh, BJ, I'm so sorry," I said. "I thought you were Hawkeye."

"Sorry to disappoint," he replied. "Drink?"

"Yeah, a big one."

"That's unusual. Anything amiss?"

"No," I said, falsely. He saw through that right away.

"What's wrong?" he rephrased. I was reluctant to tell him, to let him know that my faith in humanity was wavering, that the man I had been in love with for so long was nothing but a creep.

"I just heard some news that was...unsettling," I replied carefully.

"About what?" He sat on his bed and looked up at me with his big, blue eyes. Something about his face being so open to me made me open up to it. As much as I tried not to, I couldn't help but spill it all to him.

"About Hawkeye," I sighed and sat down. "About the stories that I hear about him and whether or not they're true."

"Oh, so that's the trouble," he said, putting his drink down on his bedside table. "You've heard about the one who sneaks in the night."

"The night, the afternoon, the morning, anytime as far as I know," I said. "But is it true? BJ, tell me, is it true what they say about him? Or is it vicious gossip?"

Looking down, I realized I was sitting on Hawkeye's bed. How many other women had been there before me? How many other people had been wined and dined in this tent before I even arrived? Or worse, how many after I'd arrived?

BJ crossed the room and sat down next to me. "The thing you have to understand about Hawkeye is...well," I could tell he was trying to word it in a way that would explain his friend's disposition to me without lying or telling too much of the truth. "He's Hawkeye," he finished. "I know that's vague, but it's true. He's a one-of-a-kind guy." He put his hand in mine, comforting me. "And Hawkeye likes to have his fun. He drinks, he gambles, he sasses superior officers, and he chases women. Those things make Hawkeye who he is."

My head fell. That was it then; maybe I was just another woman to him. Maybe he was just up for a challenge and didn't realize what a hard catch I would be.

But BJ placed his hand under my chin and gently nudged my head up so I was looking straight at him. "But Hawkeye would never, ever do anything to hurt someone. I have a feeling that, if he knew he was breaking hearts left and right, he wouldn't do it anymore. Hawkeye may like to chase women, but he doesn't want to hurt them. Besides, you have to understand, there's no coercion. Sure, he'll kid around, but in the end every girl who ends up being with him does it of her own free will, whether or not she'd like to admit it the day after."

I took his hand in mine and smiled. "You really are so wonderful to defend him like this," I said. "Whether or not he deserves it."

He patted my knee and stood up, making his way back to the still. "Sometimes, I can't figure out why I defend Hawkeye. Even Margaret and Frank defend him sometimes, but we don't have any idea why." He poured some liquid into a martini glass and passed it to me. "But we all do. Hawkeye is a good guy. He may not always act like it, but he has a good heart."

Staring into the glass, I tried to see the logic in BJ's words, but what Sherry had said was burned into my mind.

_I was nothing but a notch in his bedpost._

I didn't know who to believe. Sherry wouldn't lie about something like that, but neither would BJ. Was Hawkeye really a sex-maniac who was just looking for the next best thing? Or was he just a lonely guy, trying to get consolation by any means he could?

I took a swig of martini, and was surprised by the liquid that flowed down my throat. I held up my glass to BJ.

"You know you put water in my glass?"

"I sure do," he replied, putting real gin into his glass.

"I'm a big girl, you know BJ, I can take care of myself. If I want a hangover, that's my prerogative."

"I know, and if you really want it, I'll pour you a glass of our gut-busting gin. However, and don't take this the wrong way, it might not be the best time for you to drink. You're upset and alcohol will only make it worse."

I tossed the empty glass onto the table and smiled. "I don't know whether to yell at you for butting in or thank you for looking out for me."

"Whichever one it is, at least one of us will have a clear head in the morning." He took another swig and chuckled. "It's promising to be a long session for me."

"Any reason?" I asked.

He paused, obviously racking his brain for a better reason than _we are in the middle of a war, why the hell not?_

"It's just been a long day."

* * *

I couldn't very well say, _I am reevaluating my life at the moment because I can't seem to think straight when I am around you and I feel like I've been walking around with my head on backwards since you came along._

"It's just been a long day." It sounded much better.

"Well, you get some rest," she answered. "My prescription for a long day is a long night."

"Is that an open invitation?"

She spun around and met Hawkeye as he sauntered into the tent.

"And how are you doing this evening, my dear?"

"Fine, Captain," she spat, pushing past him and rushing out the door. He followed her out of sight with his eyes and then stared back at me.

"What did I do?"

"It seems someone from your checkered past swooped in and told Linda about your exploits as the Casanova of the 4077th."

"Who?"

"Sherry."

"Damn," he whispered, looking out the door. "I wish I could have explained things to her before she heard all that."

"There's still time," I said.

"I don't think she wants to talk to me."

"Then don't let her talk. Just make her listen. You two have been friends too long and she knows you better than to listen to some silly rumors."

He turned to me and smiled. "When did you become my relationship counselor?"

I shrugged. "I'm here to serve."

"I think I'll give her a minute to cool off before I go in there and explain myself."

"What are you gonna say to her?" I asked, sipping my gin. I hoped Hawkeye would have something intelligent to say or he could easily lose Linda.

"I'll just tell her the truth," he said confidently. "I'll speak from my own mind, I'll use the language I have acquired over my lifetime to eloquently set her straight."

"Sounds good."

"So what should I say?" he pleaded.

I laughed. "I think this time you really should use your own words. It doesn't matter if it's eloquent or not, just as long as it's the truth."

"But what should I say? The truth is not a very nice one."

"As long as you're honest. Just go there and make sure she knows that you still care about her."

Determined, he jumped up and threw himself toward the door. Before he left, he turned and looked at me, gratitude etched into his face. "Thanks for all your help BJ. You've saved me from a foot in the mouth several times. This time, though, it's so important-"

"Don't tell me, tell her," I said, cutting him off. "Go!"

He smiled and tore out the door towards her tent.

I sighed and took a sip of my drink.


	24. Ch 24: Two Apologies

"Linda?" I asked, knocking on the door. "It's Hawkeye. Can we talk?"

Instead of a voice, silence answered me. "Linda, I know you're in there."

"Congratulations." I could hear the venom in her voice. She was livid. I just hoped there was a chance for me to explain myself before she began hating me forever.

"Can I please come in?"

After a beat, I heard movement inside and the bolt in the door slid free. I pushed the door open and walked in.

Linda stood in the middle of the room with her arms crossed and a look of loathing on her face. In her eyes, I was everything wrong with humanity, and being there made me feel like she was right.

"So, is it true?" she asked.

"You mean am I the dog everyone thinks I am?" I asked, trying to liven the mood.

It didn't work.

"No jokes, Hawkeye," she replied. "Just answer me."

I sighed. "I don't know what to say."

"Just tell me what happened with Sherry. I want to hear it from you. And if you lie to me, I swear-"

"I won't lie," I said. "But you'll let me defend myself, right?"

"Of course."

"May I?" I asked, gesturing towards her bed.

"That depends on if you mean sit in it or spend the night," she said coldly.

"Oh, come on, Linda. I've been on my feet for ten hours, can I please sit?"

She pointed to Sherry's unused bunk. "You'll be more comfortable over there. You're more familiar with the territory."

"You know you're being very unfair," I said, pulling the desk chair out and sitting. "Whether or not you hate me after I explain myself is up to you, but at least let me tell my side of the story before you tar and feather me."

She raised an eyebrow. "So tell it."

I jumped right in. "Sherry and I met when she first came into camp. She was bright and cheerful and intoxicating to be around. I couldn't get enough of being with her. I'd invite her over to the swamp, we'd have drinks, a few laughs, and we would talk about anything and everything."

"Like how much you loved her?"

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, taken aback.

"Sherry told me that you said you loved her. That's the only reason why she let you..." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "That's the only reason she was with you."

"I never said anything like that," I said defensively. "Sherry assumed a lot of things about me that I never told her. That's one of the reasons I stopped seeing her."

"So you never told her that you 'Had never felt this way about anyone'? You never said anything like that to her?"

"Sure, I said that, but that's not the same as 'I love you'. She may have gotten that idea but I never used those words."

"Don't try to get around what you said by arguing semantics with me," she said fiercely. "Did you do anything to try and straighten her out? To tell her that you didn't love her and that all you were interested in having was 'a few laughs', as you so eloquently put it."

"Yes I did!" I screamed. "I told her every day that I wasn't interested in a home in the suburbs and a border collie like she was, but she never got it. When I finally realized that she wouldn't be dissuaded, no matter how hard I tried, I stopped seeing her."

"I don't know if I can believe you, Hawkeye," she said, her eyes flashing with a ferocity that made my blood run cold.

"What's this really about, Linda?" I asked, venturing into dangerous territory. "Is this about Sherry, or is this about something else?"

She was silent for a moment as she turned away from me. I wasn't sure if I had made her even angrier at me or if she was calmer now.

When she spoke again, her voice was steady, but was as intense as a hurricane.

"You've changed so much since you've been here. I've noticed just how much and it scares me." She turned to face me, her face eerily devoid of any emotion. "I guess what I am afraid of is that you have changed so much that the things Sherry said are actually true. That you will be my friend only until a new batch of women comes driving in and then you'll forget about me. If that happens, then I'll really be by myself, completely alone."

"You're not alone, Linda," I replied softly. Despite her anger, I pulled her into a tight embrace. "I swear to you that nothing like that will ever happen." I let her go just enough that she could see the seriousness in my face. "Do you understand me? You are not just a novelty. I really care about you."

"And I care about you," she said. "But I have to ask you something."

"What?"

"Would you ever do something like that to me? Charm me into bed and then leave me, just like that?"

"Linda, you know I wouldn't."

"I know," she said, dryly. "I just had to ask."

"Do you not believe me?" I asked, letting her go. "Do you think that I'm really that awful?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore!" she yelled, throwing her hands up in frustration. "The last time I saw you, back in the real world, you were living with someone that you claimed to love. Now, I come here and they tell me that you're a scoundrel who corrupts every nurse he sees."

"Wait a minute," I said. I was trying not to get angry at her, but it was hard not to protect myself from her accusations. "I am not a scoundrel. Sherry approached me. And, if I remember correctly, she approached me with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a ring on her finger."

Linda stopped cold. "What?"

"Haven't you noticed the ring on her finger? She's married. Her husband is some kind of contractor in Montana."

Linda was silent. She looked like her legs had been kicked out from under her.

Without so much as a warning, she lashed out. Her hand flicked faster than I could follow and before I knew it, half of her papers and books were on the floor and she was sitting in a heap on her bed.

"What's wrong with this place?" she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. "Why can't anyone be straight with me?"

I sat down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "We're a crooked bunch."

"I'm serious, Hawkeye," she said, shrugging my hand off. "The nurses hate me because I like being friends with the officers. So they give me a reason to hate my best friend here and then I find out that it's nothing but an act to drive me insane. I've already embarrassed myself by cracking under the pressure; do I need to go screaming headlong into the minefield to prove that I can't take this anymore?"

She buried her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry, Linda." I replied softly. "I should have told you about what I'm about here. I should have told you how this place can change you. I should have warned you..."

Dropping my head in shame, I thought to myself, _I failed her_. "I was only trying to help. I wanted you to feel welcome, so I introduced you to my friends. I didn't realize that it would alienate you from everyone else." I laughed angrily. "I'm such an idiot."

I felt her hand on my shoulder and looked into her face. Her tears weren't even dry, but she was consoling me.

"It's not you, Hawkeye," she said gently. "It's just this place..." she trailed off. "I appreciate how you took me in and gave me a place to feel welcome. You made the effort to make this place bearable. Thank you for that." And then, she leaned in and gave me a kiss.

My heart seemed to leap out of my chest into my throat and do a dance with my vocal chords. Despite the earnestness of the situation, I smiled.

Luckily, she smiled back.

"You're welcome," I replied.

I walked into the Swamp with such a bounce in my step that it made BJ look up from his letter and eye me cautiously.

"Have you been into the medicine cabinet again, Hawk?" he asked.

"Why in the world would you ask me such a thing?" I replied, the grin on my face answering his question.

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe because your smile is so big it's meeting at the back of your head."

"Well, it's just the idea that I helped a friend in need, BJ." I flopped down onto my cot. "It's so rewarding."

"I'm guessing Linda forgave you," BJ said.

"She forgave me like you wouldn't believe."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you saying you _helped_ a friend in need, Hawk?"

"It wasn't like that," I replied. "No, it was more like, 'Thank you for being a friend Hawkeye' and then she kissed me."

"She thanked you. For what?"

I sat up. "That's not the punch line, Beej. She _kissed_ me. Right here." I pointed to my lips. "I can still feel her lips on my skin. It was heaven."

"So, what did she thank you for?"

BJ wasn't getting the picture, but I dropped it. "She thanked me for introducing her to my friends and making her feel welcome here. The nurses have done such a good job of making her an outcast; she appreciates me for being a friend."

"And she kissed you?"

"Yeah, right here." I pointed to my lips again. "It was just a small kiss, nothing fancy, but I couldn't breathe afterwards."

"I'm late for post-op," BJ said suddenly, jumping out of his cot and running towards the door. "I'll see you later."

"Didn't you already do your post-op for the day?" I asked, but he was already halfway across the compound by the time I turned around.


	25. Ch 25: Drinking With a Friend

It felt like the tent had slowly closed in around me and I had to leave. The idea that Linda left my tent in a rage at Hawkeye and he left her tent with a kiss made me crazy. He was caught, his cover blown and she kissed him? I tried to see the logic in it, but it alluded me.

Since my needing to be in post-op was an outright lie, I needed to find a place to go and cool off. I decided that dipping myself in a beer at the officer's club would be the best bet.

The officer's club was almost completely empty when I pulled the door open and stepped inside. But for the one person at the bar and Igor behind it, it was a tomb. I shut the door behind me and made my way to the bar.

"BJ!" I heard a voice say.

Damn.

"What are you doing here, Linda?" I asked, pulling up a stool next to her.

She held up a glass, the contents of which slopped all over her hand. "Gardening," she replied, and began to giggle.

I had to smile. "How many have you had?"

"This is it," she replied. "I told you, I can't hold my alcohol at all. One gin and tonic and I'm soused."

"Maybe you should quit while you're still vertical," I said cautiously, but she brushed my comment off.

"Nonsense, nonsense. Now, I can drink with you and I won't be alone and that will be much better than drinking alone all by myself drinking alone and is this the single longest sentence in the world?"

Laughing, I turned to Igor. "Whatever she's having give me two."

"That's the spirit, BJ!" she said, roughly patting me on the back. "If I don't remember this in the morning, remind me how nice you were."

"So tell me, how did the confrontation with Hawkeye go?" I asked, my attempt to ease into the conversation totally failing. I accepted my drinks from Igor and turned to her.

"It was..." she trailed off. The smile melted from her face and she stared into the distance. Igor took that as his cue to sidle to the room behind the bar.

"That good, huh?" I said sympathetically.

"You know," she started, drunken demeanor completely gone. "I have been in love with Hawkeye for such a long time. But I realized tonight that I wasn't in love with _him_ as much as I was in love with the _idea_ of him."

"The idea of him?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know. The doctor who would do anything to save a patient. The guy who, after a long day in a hospital would still remember to bring you flowers or make you dinner or rub your feet. The man who, despite overwhelming atrocities in his life can still laugh and smile and joke. That idea."

She turned to me and laughed. "I don't expect you to understand my silly, convoluted ideas, especially when I'm in this state."

"No, I think I get it," I replied. "Besides, you're exponentially more coherent than most of the people that I drink with in here."

"You're just saying that cuz I'm pretty," she said, flipping her hair and chuckling.

"Well, you are definitely the most attractive person I've drank with in a long time," I said.

Her head jerked towards me and she looked up at me with surprise, but almost immediately dropped it into a smile. "Then again, the prettiest person you drink with is Klinger," she said.

"You caught me," I said, taking a sip of my drink. "But we've sidetracked, please continue."

"Nah," she said, taking a sip of her drink. "I've said enough. Let's talk about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you," she replied. "We always end up talking about me and my problems: 'Linda is the new one, let's yield the floor to her.' 'Linda has something to say, let's listen closely.' 'Linda is having an episode, let's discuss.'"

I laughed. "It's just because you're the new girl in town. You're the most fascinating person to those of us who have been here a long time."

Suddenly, her face dropped. "Did I say something wrong?" I asked.

"It's just another thing Sherry said to me," she said softly.

"What?"

"It's just...she told me that the only reason people are being so kind to me is that I have novelty, that I'm the new girl in town."

"Well, that was sweet of her," I said sarcastically.

"Just another little ditty that made me question my whole existence," she said before she downed the rest of her gin and tonic. I passed her my extra glass. "It scared the hell out of me," she continued. "The idea that my friends were only my friends because I was the new girl and that once a new jeep came I'd be cast aside."

"You had to know that it was just her way of trying to get you to conform and be like all the other nurses," I said.

"I kept thinking that, but in the back of my mind I asked myself, 'What if she's right?' That and all that stuff about Hawkeye came at me at once and then, the next thing you know I was hurling myself through the door of the swamp ready to kill him."

"And, with that in mind, you gave him a big smooch," I said, a little more resentfully than I had intended.

Despite that, she laughed. "I know, it was a dumb thing to do. But I really did appreciate all he did for me. I mean, he didn't have to take me in, show me the ropes here, introduce me to fantastic people like Radar and Klinger and you. I mean, I have the C.O. giving me Japanese fans to help me decorate my tent, I have Radar, who loves to do favors for me, Klinger sews up my fatigues when they rip, you help me pass the time in post-op, and Margaret, despite how much she pretends to hate Hawkeye, really respects him and through his recommendation she asked me to be a part of the senior nursing staff-"

"What?" I asked, jumping up out of my chair, nearly spilling my drink in the process. "You're a senior nurse now?"

"Well, after my breakdown of late, she might rescind the offer, but I am if I accept."

"Congratulations!" I screamed, hugging her. "That must feel good."

"It would if I was planning to take the position," she said quietly.

"What?"

"I don't want any more guff than I already have. Can you imagine after all that I have done to alienate myself from the other nurses how they'll respond to taking recommendations from me? They'll hate me even more. I'll never get any hot water in the showers, if we ever bug out they'll probably leave me behind, and I'll have all of that simply because Hawkeye is my friend."

"Whoa," I replied, sitting down again. "Hawkeye didn't recommend you to that post because you and he have a past. He did it because you're a great nurse. Hell, we've all broken down. It's the people who don't understand the gravity of this place that are right as rain. I mean, look at Frank-"

"Do I have to?" she asked. We laughed.

"To continue," I said. "Frank Burns has never once let the depravity in. Is that because he's stronger than us? Hell no! It's because he doesn't get it. But you, you get it. That's why you let it in. And now you can build it back up and be a stronger person for it. You never want to forget what it is, but you can't let yourself be overrun by it."

We sat in silence for a moment. She nodded solemnly and I took my drink in hand.

"That conversation got too serious for me," she said, breaking the pause.

I laughed. "And that's our sermon for today," I said, impersonating Father Mulcahy. She joined my chuckling and held her glass up for a toast.

"This is to BJ Hunnicutt: The person who always knows how to make me feel better, the person who is able to make me laugh when we're being bombed, not to mention getting bombed, and probably the nicest person in all of Korea."

"Ditto," I replied, and we drank.


	26. Ch 26: Revile

* * *

Revile was hell, partly because Radar's awful bugle playing, and partly because of the headache that was pounding behind my eyes. BJ and I had sat up for hours laughing, talking, and drinking. Of course, the way my head was throbbing, it really felt like we had spent most of the night bashing our heads against the walls of the officer's club. 

Walking into the bright sunshine didn't help the hangover, nor did the biting chill that forced me back into my tent to get a jacket. Winter seemed to be coming on strong and, I figured, it would get colder before it would get warmer.

As I walked across the compound, I spotted BJ slipping out of the swamp looking about as bad as I felt. He was unshaven, his hair was a mess, and he barely managed to put his robe on before he staggered out the door of his tent.

"Is this what people look like when they have hangovers?" I asked as I neared him.

"Who cares how we look?" he replied, wrapping his robe around his body. "Do you feel like you have a Buick driving around in your head?"

"Mine feels more like a tank."

We both giggled, despite the pain it caused and made our way to the ranks. Colonel Potter was standing next to Radar who was dutifully taking roll call. With the exception of Margaret and Frank, people were slowly ambling into their places, taking little care in what the formation looked like. Luckily, Colonel Potter didn't seem to care.

"Do I have to go over there?" I asked, gesturing to the group of nurses clumped by the flagpole. "I think I'd rather go have another few drinks and then break boards with my head."

"Come with me," he replied, and pulled me away from the group of gawking girls. He dragged me away from the main configuration and towards Father Mulcahy who was standing attentively, but not at attention.

"Good morning," Father Mulcahy said amiably as we walked up.

"Good?" BJ replied, a hand on his head. "Tell that to my hangover."

"We were up late last night, Father," I replied, pointing to the officer's club. "And we weren't playing gin."

"We were drinking it," BJ added.

Father Mulcahy nodded. "Yes, well, we heard you. You were being rather loud. Especially when you started playing the piano."

"The piano?" I asked. I turned to BJ. "Did we play the piano?"

"It wasn't really playing," added Klinger, walking up to us wearing a silver turban and a full-length pink gown. "It sounded more like you were pounding on it."

I winced. "Oh, I do remember that. We were kind of stepping on it."

"Stepping on the piano," Father Mulcahy asked?

BJ laughed. "That's right. We were trying to play Beethoven with our feet."

I laughed along with him but it was cut short by Colonel Potter clearing his throat. The crowd slowly quieted until he had their attention.

"Good morning, camp," he said. "As you may know, and I'm sure some of you have it marked on your calendars, it's just about time for the biannual camp physical. No one is exempt from this as it is an army directive. Radar will be handing out schedules. Please report to your appointments on time and fully ready to get physical." A titter of laughter echoed through the crowd and Colonel Potter, realizing what he had said, quickly turned red. "Now, Major Houlihan has a few announcements for the nurses. The rest of you may be off to your duties." He turned and made a beeline for his office with Radar in tow.

I turned to BJ. "Goodie, I get to spend more time with my favorite people."

"Well, once you're done, we can get a cup of coffee at the mess tent. Hopefully, that will help us get over this unfortunate side effect of our wild time last night."

"That sounds great," I said.

"Meet me at the swamp. I need to get a jacket on. It's too cold for a robe."

"But you look so darn good in it," I replied, winking. He smiled back.

"See you in a few. Good luck."

"Thanks," I said. I took a deep breath and headed for the congregation of nurses all gathering around Major Houlihan.

"All right, nurses," she said when she saw I had joined the group. "A few announcements for you. First and foremost, concerning the upcoming physicals, I'd like to remind you that under no circumstances are the doctors allowed to examine you without the door open or another nurse present. This is protocol that, if not followed, will have dire costs.

"Secondly, due to the recent departures of a good amount of our senior nursing staff, I have appointed three new nurses to fill their positions. These ladies will confer with me on a regular basis, will be in charge of shifts, and will join the other senior nurses at weekly meetings.

"The first of these is Lieutenant Betty Parker." There was polite applause. I looked over and saw the nurse Margaret was referring to and immediately recognized her as the busty brunette I had seen at my first meeting with Colonel Potter. Strangely though, I couldn't remember seeing her at all after that meeting. I tried not to get a complex about it. She was obviously doing something right if she was going to be a senior nurse. Then again, she looked more military than Majors Burns and Houlihan put together. Maybe Margaret wanted someone like herself to fill the post.

"Second, we have Lieutenant Sherry Gardner." Louder applause. I glanced at Sherry and noticed she was completely surrounded by nurses all smiling and patting her on the back. I, on the other hand, was alone...as usual.

"Third. Lieutenant Linda Florence." All eyes snapped to me. There was no applause at all. Only a dead silence greeted my name.

"Those of you who I just mentioned will report to my tent at nineteen hundred hours tonight for a staff meeting. The rest of you will regard these nurses with respect as they are the mainline to me. This is my final word on the subject. Dismissed."

She turned on her heel and marched toward her tent.

"Major Houlihan!" I cried, trying to get her attention. She didn't hear me. Trying to get her to turn around, I pushed my way through the crowd of nurses and saw only a blur of hostile faces as I passed.

"Major Houlihan," called again as I neared her tent. She turned around and faced me.

"Yes Lieutenant?"

"Major, with all due respect, I wish you hadn't done that."

"Done what, Linda?" she asked.

"You know what I'm talking about, Major," I said. "You told me that you would give me that position only if I accepted it."

"And?"

"I don't want it!" I said.

"You will lower your voice, Lieutenant," she replied sternly. She pulled open her door and gestured to it. "Inside."

I made my way into her tent. I half expected it to be staunchly army: nothing but green and khaki for miles. Instead, I was surprised to see a personal flair to it. Colored cloth over a lamp, pictures on the wall, and a clothesline with civilian clothing on it.

"Now, Lieutenant," she started. "I may have told you before that your position on the senior nursing staff required you to accept it. However, after looking at the situation, I decided to decide for you."

"How can you do that?" I asked, enraged. "I don't want this position. I don't want the meetings and the authority. I want to just go through my time here and then go home with as little emotional torment as I can possibly have."

"Well, Linda, maybe I would be more apt to rescind my offer if I thought that you were refusing because you didn't think you could do it."

"I can't do it!" I screamed.

"No!" she screamed back. "You _can_ do it. You just won't."

She composed herself and sat at her desk. "You are a brilliant nurse," she started. I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious. You are smart and quick, you do your job efficiently and you don't mess around when it comes to patients. And, although I hardly agree with your choice of friends, you don't let that group of people get to you. In short, you are one of the smartest women who has passed through this camp."

"I appreciate your opinion, Major, but that aside-"

"I won't have any of that," she interrupted. "You are absolutely the most qualified for this job. I have spoken and you will take this job. If you do not take the position, I would consider it a direct violation of my orders and would have you court marshaled."

"Fine," I spat, and turned to leave, disgusted that she was throwing her rank in my face.

"Linda." The way she said it made me stop and turn around. Her face had fallen open for a moment and I could see that she was being sincere, a position she didn't find herself in often. "I know what it's like to talk to them and get no warmth in return. I told you before that it would just take time before they respected you."

"They still don't."

She stood up and walked to me, placing surprisingly comforting hand on my shoulder. "Hiding from them won't make them respect you. This position will help them see how dedicated you are. This is the way to earn that respect."

She was right. As much as I hated the notion, I was going to have to leave my shadow and jump out into the line of fire to earn the respect of the other girls. I knew I might get shot down, but I may just be valued and, in time, accepted.

"I'll see you at seven, Major."


	27. Ch 27: Assignments

* * *

It seemed like saying "Good luck" wasn't quite enough to prepare Linda for the onslaught she was about to receive. I had known Margaret Houlihan long enough to know that she wasn't going to let something like not having Linda's consent stop her from announcing her as a senior nurse.

"Poor kid," I said to myself as I walked through the door of the swamp. Hawkeye was standing at the mirror nailed to the tent post, shaving. "I guess you heard about the physicals," I said.

"What gave me away?" Hawkeye asked with a flick of his razor.

"Oh, I'm just brilliant," I said, closing the door and peering through the mesh tent to the group of nurses in the compound."

"I thought staring at nurses was supposed to be _my _job," Hawkeye said, wiping his freshly shaven face with his towel. He stepped next to me and peered with me. "What's the occasion?"

"Margaret is about to tell the nurses who are already so very fond of Linda that they now have to answer to her."

We stood quietly and listened to Margaret read off names. Finally, Linda's name was called and no one responded. I could feel the chill of some of those glares across the camp and could only imagine how she was feeling three feet away.

"Well, there you have it," I said, walking to my bed. "Linda is now officially on the senior nursing staff."

"Margaret must have taken my recommendation seriously," he replied. "I almost thought she would think I was being biased."

"The she would have had to discard my recommendation too," I said. "And Colonel Potter's. Even Ferret Face had nice things to say about her, even though he's still steamed at her for insulting him that first day."

"She is the most qualified," Hawkeye replied.

"Yeah, but we just signed her life away. If they hated her before, they're gonna hate her more now that they have to answer to her."

"Well, it's out of our hands now," he said. "Now, you have to get dressed so we can go to Colonel Potter's office and get our physical appointments."

I laughed. "Excited about seeing soldiers in their skivvies?"

"Not the soldiers as much as the nurses. You coming?"

"Hold your skivvies, I'm coming." I threw my robe on my bed and put on my fatigues. Combing my hand through my hair, I ran to the door just as Hawkeye was excitedly running out of the tent. "Whoa, slow down!"

"I can't help it," he said, stopping only long enough for me to scamper out of the door. "This is my favorite time of the year. Biannual physicals are better than Christmas."

"It's just another army directive to me," I replied.

"Well, to the bachelor doctors of the world, like yours truly, it's an opportunity to see more of the nursing staff than you can catch at a matinee in the women's shower."

We made our way across the compound to Colonel Potter's office. Despite the chill, it was a beautiful, sunny day. However, the weather was precarious and the thermometers of the camp would soon read negative numbers.

Strolling into Radar's office, we saw him scuttling around his desk, fastening sheets of paper to clipboards. Hawkeye immediately got excited.

"Are those the physical assignments?" he asked, eager as a boy at his birthday party.

"Yes they are," Radar said, never looking up from his task. He handed the clipboard labeled "Captain Pierce" to Hawkeye who snatched it out of his hand and began to skim the page. "Here's yours BJ," he said, handing me mine.

With little gusto, I looked over the page.

With much gusto, Hawkeye slammed his clipboard on the table.

"Is something wrong, Captain?" Radar asked casually, finally glancing up from his work.

"You bet there is!" Hawkeye yelled. "I have names upon names on this sheet of paper and none of them read 'Lieutenant Linda Florence!'"

"That's because she's not yours to examine, Hawkeye," Radar replied, matter-of-factly.

"Then who?"

I spotted the name halfway down my sheet. I grinned at Hawkeye and pointed to the page.

"It figures!" Hawkeye screamed, kicking Radar's trashcan in frustration. "The married man gets to perform a physical on the woman of my dreams and I'm stuck with Sergeant Zale, Frank, and Radar."

"Hey!" Radar interjected.

"No offense, Radar," Hawkeye said, "But you are not a beautiful, stacked nurse whose name is right now on BJ's list!"

"Sorry, Hawk," I replied, looking over his list. "At least your exams will be interesting." I pointed at a name that, in his haste to find Linda's name, he missed.

"Are you kidding me?" he whooped. "I hate the army!" He chucked the clipboard at the file cabinet, cracking it in two clean pieces.

"Hey!" Radar screamed again. "That comes out of my pay."

"I'm sorry, Radar. I'll pay for it," Hawkeye said, calming down. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at me, defeated. "Sherry. I have to examine Sherry Gardner."

"You'd better keep those sharp instruments away from her," I replied, patting him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied. "Tell Linda and her fabulous body I say hello."

"I will. Give my regards to Lieutenant Gardner."

"Everyone's a comedian."


End file.
